Back catalogue: Uplifting Trance

Review: In celebration of their tenth birthday, Selador marks the occasion in style with a four-track collaborative EP, featuring tracks from 3D, Robert Owens, Olivier Giacomotto, Quivver, Dave Seaman, Hernan Cattaneo, Argia, and Jepe. The opening track, 'Known Love', is a deep, pulasting house tune that feels like an instant classic, perhaps thanks to the soulful, pop-tinged vocals - think LCD soundsystem meets Four Tet. 'Snailblazer', the second track on the EP, takes a much darker turn, with a chugging, EBM-esque feel. Full-bodied and complete with obscured vocals, this is the kind of track to pull out your bag when it's time to really get stuck in. On the B-side, 'Napkin Knowledge' draws on the glistening synths of eurodance, yet still securing the melodies to a grounded bassline and rhythm section. 'Salitre' is the perfect closing track, rising up in a gleaming, ecstatic melody, before delicately returning to ground level. A varied yet firmly cohesive collaborative release - the perfect way for Selador to kick off their 2023 catalogue.

Review: OG trance pusher Marcel Hol aka. Hole In One laid down his most famous track, 'Life's Too Short', in early 1996. There is a strange irony behind the track's rise to fame; in its original form, a B-side version of the track known as the 'Live At Paleis Soestdijk Mix' existed - it was named after the residence of the Dutch royal family, and featured the riveting, nigh breathtaking sound of a crowd cheering in the buildup. It was perhaps the title, in combination with the crowd cheering sound effect, that spurred an unusually fervent throng of record labels to pursue a release with Hol. This was despite the fact that the track wasn't recorded live at all, and that Hol hadn't ever set foot in the Paleis Soestdijk, with the cheering worked into the track, as per usual, during the production stage. Whatever the truth of it, the legacy of Hol's star sonic piece is paid a modern homage in the form of two remixes by Jerome Robins here, who polishes the track for the contemporary ear whilst also including the 'live' palatial mix.

Review: French producer Houdini (Simon Peter Ellis) might be toutable as merely a trance producer on the surface, but the reality is that he's much more of a weirdo than our genre tags make him out to be. The name of the 'Strange' EP suggests that it is, well, just that. With these tracks released in and around 1994 on the infamous Fax label run by the late great Pete Namlook, they're as mad as hatters, barely clinging on to their status as trance numbers before indulging some of the oddest tricks and presets in the book. The humourously-named 'Don't Know Really' and the organified 'Beyond Recognition', for example, are essentially house numbers, but in their indeterminate moodwork and jarringly in-betweeny palette, it's really up to you as to how to categorize them in the end.

Review: Grown-up techno label Kompkat has always served up its most dancefloor ready sounds as part of the Speicher series and it is now up to an impressive 129 installments. This one kicks off with Hunter/Game & U S H N U's collaboration 'Reload' which is an electric cut with bright synth lines shimmering about the mix next to thunderous claps and dark future vocals. On the flip, Bawrut cuts loose with rave stabs over dense percussive grooves with vocal snatches adding to the unsettling and boisterous mood of 'Clapa', which does indeed also have plenty of claps.