Ode to 138: How Trance forged my soul

Back in the dank and cloistered confines of my 90s school drama hut, we had a musical choice to make for a project. I half expected the usual metal or rock, given that most of the boys in my class were in bands and enjoyed it. I was half right. Some brilliant soul brought in two CDs, Fat of the Land by the Prod and Robert Mile’s Dreamland. Where had they been all my life? Both were epiphanies in the sort of quasi-religious I need this in my life sort of way.

Up to that point my musical world was dominated by classical, a dab of Radio 1 late at night and church. Not that my parents banned music, Mr Blobby certain had his day, but nothing like the sublime music that played out of those tinny speakers. It really was rapturous.

There was a running joke with my classmates that I simply gave the names of bands I heard in class because I knew no better, but it was more of not really being able to explain that Holst or Rachmaninov were all I really knew. I adore music, it allows me to be expressive and in the moment, and the classical music of my childhood was just part of my tapestry. Metal loving teenage boys probably did know some pieces, but I did not have the social language to really explain myself. Hence, when those two albums spilled out, I found my muse.

Music is intensely personal, and there is no right way to appreciate it. Taste is utterly subjective, and as I have got older I have come to appreciate metal and pop in ways that I was dismissive when I was younger. Yet even for all the wonderful music that I consume on the daily, there is something about trance that I cannot resist. Yes, in my subjective opinion, there are most certainly trance tracks I would never listen to ever again, but across all the wonderful sub-genres of trance I know that I will lose my body, mind, and soul for the sublime moments those tracks grace my ears.

I find it hard to explain just how deep of a connection I have to trance. When people say their favourite track, album or artist, for me it is simply waving in the general direction of trance and saying all of this. Trance is designed to flow one track into another, a symphony woven out of moonlit gossamer threads that is never the same twice. Mixing brings out the high notes, like a great wine accompanying a delicious meal, bringing joy and revelation. It cleaves to a part of me that cannot stop smiling, is all serotonin, and bathes in the light of a thousand lasers.

There is more to life than a melody, yet as soon as the beat starts, the melody swells, and the complete euphoria rest light upon me I know that life is casamir skyfire and castles in the sky. It is as the rush comes moment by moment, all concrete angels guarding and guiding my soul, shivers down my spine, and a dreamland build from pure imagination. Much saltwater have I cried, yet trance was the firestarter that ignited the true sense of who I am. I have lived for this energy, turned my world into a dancefloor, and until I finally sail away from life’s burdens, I am very much one and one with trance.