Summary: Resuming my Trance Mission with “The 138 bpm Drop” Balearic Trance Journey. Drop both your inhibitions and your gear and let the journey start! If you do not like real (but frenetic at times) bangin’ trance, I strongly suggest you give this one a miss… yet, you will have foregone quite a journey… Firstly, I have to thank Lars for giving me the inspiration to put this set together. Lars has been supporting this space for quite a while and has always commented (positively or not) when he sees a new upload. Recently, Lars contacted me when, in between my hiatus and completely uninterested with the current offering of traditional house, I uploaded the 2 Quanta of Solace. Once again he gave me the will-power to revisit that old love of mine, Trance, Progressive House or what I call Trouse. In the past, I have always chided from high bpm Trance. Anything over 130 and I would either never get there or prefer not to include it in any set. Partly for I felt it was frenetic and partly for I assumed I (and by extension) you were too old for it. The algorithm I use to choose a playlist in preparation for my sets is programmed by design to nicely keep tracks, keys, bpm and flavours in a tight range. And since I like to start slow to build up, I very rarely get to reach anything over 130 bpm. There is vast blog space on the Internet dedicated to the question “ Who is afraid of 138 bpm Trance?” There is even a label called “ Who is afraid of 138 bpm?”…. Well, in many ways, I am! This being said, in order to continue the Trance Mission and be true to the genre, I always knew I would eventually have to get over that fear.. I worked without the algorithm and here we are. Set is 80% over 132 bpm by DESIGN! Vielen Danke Herr Lars. This one (good or not) is for YOU! Sorry for all the florish but had all those dits and felt like trying them out.. Another reason to resume the mission, was a request I got a few weeks ago to play for Mardi Gras for a LGBTY party in Sydney. The request was flattering, yet due to not being in the right headspace at all and natural performance jitters, I chose not to consider it. I told the promoter that I would send him a demo of what I thought would be the right journey for such an event for the boys. Well, here it is! As a general comment, this set is very ornate. In many ways , it is more a case of Xtian trying to take stock of what he can do and tediously learn new tricks than anything else. But along the way I am putting out there all the new edits and mashups I have been toiling on, which might just be a bit TOO MUCH in one go considering my modicum of talent but it feels so good to have them out there and await your reaction and so good to have them safely saved and backed up on my HD for a future live set! As an added bonus (for me): after the mashup of Silence and Missing from a few years back, I have now semi-cracked a mashup and counter-mashup of Finally and Silence.. Yippee, I can finally rest. Obviously, not every track is fresh and current. For Trance is all about anthems and there are at the most 3 or 4 a year! I did try my best to include a few I never played before. As I had used a few current great tracks in the two previous Quanta and did not want to repeat myself ad nauseam, I decided to try out all the edits I have been working on in the past and had lost when my library got corrupted. Call it a bulk early release, other would call it premature ej...... but sorry I just had to.. Even more satisfying, almost all tracks are new Xtian Edits of mostly unkown remixes and , for better or for worse, you get the added bonus of a few of mashups I am quite happy with. Now close your eyes, imagine you bought a ticket for Ibiza, got yourself sorted and you are ready for a genuine balearic Trance (continued)
