Tuesday, December 30, 2008

DJ Prospect (US) - Aquatopia (Enhanced Trance Redux)

Hear The Track Here

Another new Soundclick name to me, DJProspect (aka Cody Oleszczuk) is a trance artist from America and I have to admit to instantly turning my nose up while glancing around his page while downloading the track. I am a well known philistine when it comes to trance and very, very cautious with any praise I may dish out. I have, over the years, heard so much really, really bad techno and trance tracks that it has definitely jaded my dance palate for years. Even with the high standards available to us today, there is still enormous amounts of bland, anonymous music under these genres.

I actually enjoy dance music even though I would never be foolish enough to expose my moves to the wider world. I love it when the walls shake with some remorseless beats, I have a St Bernard sized woofer and the angriest neighbours on the planet as adequate testimony to my love for a good jiggy. What makes a trance track exceptional, at least for me, is the amount of time and effort spent on creating the right atmosphere; once that is in place even someone as hardbitten as me HAS to respond.

Aquatopia is even a reasonably easy track to digest, topping out at six minutes, forty seconds, none of it a waste of your time. There are ways to make good techno/trance and/or dance and this track pushes all the buttons all the time. One of the tricks, I have found, of getting tracks like this across quickly is an active bassline spread across the backline, rather than one single point. I do it with chorus which may well be what is happening here. Whatever, the bass on this is SLAMMIN and that is exactly the kick up the ass that makes the genre work for me. Add to that intelligent, well thought out peaks and builds and you have a very tasty peice of work.

Excellent trance. Highly Recommended.

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