When I was just out of high school and going to rock concerts, I loved my music loud. There was nothing quite like feeling a great band’s sound vibrating my entire body. But some sounds still felt like an assault. One thing that particularly annoyed me, even through ear protectiors, was the headache inducing, punchy thump of a poorly mic’d bass drum. It felt like a punch between the eyes whenever the drummer pushed the bass peddle. Every so often I come across a band that knew how to place a microphone, a performance hall that had a decent PA, or a sound guy who knew what he was doing, but that was unusual.
So it is little wonder I was late to enjoy EDM. A key part of moving bodies on the dance floor is the insistant, punchy thump-thump-thump of sampled or fully created electronic sound that keeps the beat. It is nesessarily repetative and prominent. Too often, the specific acoustics of the thump would mimmic the sort of sound that sent me back outside the hall of performing rock bands. Other people are obviously much less annoyed, if they are at all, given how popular the musical form has been for more than twenty years. For me, it was an aquired taste, borrowed from much younger generations.
Once I gave it a chance, I was astonished by some if its beauty. I mostly listened to trance, a now somewhat passe genre in the field, but one that featured more than simple melodic structures over the quite simplistic rhythms. The psychedelic elements are pronounced, as though the composers were wonder junkies, like me.
Here are a couple of mixes of some of the better trance I heard ten years ago. They both start out rather chill, then ramp up the energy. It has been a while since I compiled these, so I will have to get back later with artist and title.
