the manual and makes wetware mistakes (Rietveld 1998b). Without batteries, the
Roland 303 (analogue) bass sequencer had lost its memory and pumped out random
notes, which foregrounded the texture of its sound that could be manipulated with
filters. The producers, Phuture, were amazed by the effect and, rather than
dismissing it as ‘improper’, they recorded this sound to a house beat (Rietveld
1998b). Acid house inspired a generation of producers, including the techno
creators of Detroit, the rave generation in the UK and, importantly, a range of
trance tribes around the globe.
As a genre, trance can be described as an initially German abstracted marriage
between techno and house music. Trance is favoured in the early 21st century at rave-
styled events (often more ‘psychedelic’), as well as by super-club DJs (favouring the
‘epic’ version). It exists in parallel fashion in a wide variety of geographical locations:
Goa, Bangkok, Australia, Japan, Germany, the UK, South Africa, Israel, Greece;
and in a diversity of spaces, from legislated clubs to squat and countryside parties.
Alongside other forms of techno, during the late 1990s trance became a dominant
genre at the Love Parade in Berlin. This is a yearly techno-driven political
demonstration celebrating the reunification of Germany, attracting over a million
young people in one day by the end of the 1990s. Another example can be found in
the New Age realm: Earthdance is a yearly trance event, inspired by Tibetan
Buddhist pacifism, taking place in 45 countries, from London to San Francisco to
Melbourne, all venues linked by the internet, promoting world peace. Meanwhile,
UK-based dominant dance music magazine DJ showed in its yearly poll of October
2002 that a significant number of non-English club DJs were applauded for their
trance sets. Since it is extremely difficult for non-Anglo-American artists to break
into the British music world, this shows the overwhelming effectiveness of trance
across national borders. It could be seen as a global dominant for raves and post-rave
events, even trickling into the corporate pop world, in stylistic terms.
Trance is extremely functional; it only makes sense within the specific ritual of
DJ-led, rave-styled dance gatherings. In addition to a relentless industrial machine
aesthetic (whether psychedelic or epic), the pulsating house beat and seamless disco
mixing, it features a hypnotizing tonality House’s melodic content and groin-
moving funk bass lines have been stripped and replaced by repetitive half-note shifts
that leave the listener in a perpetual state of body-denying suspense while,
occasionally, a randomized sequence weaves its psychedelic squelches through the
mass of electronic sound. Skilfully manipulated by the DJ at a dance event, the
tracks glide into each other, deleting individual differences between them. Breaks
from the bass-drum pulse are programmed, as a rest from the physical exhaustion,
where dancers can ritually predict a build-up of suspense, and where a succession of
chords elevates the spirit and the arms, while a euphoric catharsis is produced (every
time!) when the pulse of the 4/4 bass kick drum, the mechanical heart, returns,
literally producing a ‘kick’, an adrenaline rush. The effect is comparable to a roller-
coaster ride, where the car is pulled to its highest point, people bursting with
suspense, higher, higher...and then let loose to the forces of gravity with thundering
abandon.
HILLEGONDA C.RIETVELD 51