They’ve outgrown the 'best kept secret' & ‘bright young hope’ tags, left ‘next big thing’…’ trailing in their wake and now – by our measure - they’re speeding, inexorably towards ‘new cornerstone of UK clubbing’. Give it up for Digital Society then; the best cotton-pickin’ society there is… well in England at least! Entry qualifications for D.S., well they're pretty simple… A willingness to hit northern fun-palace Leeds and a healthy desire to see some of the best trance DJs in the world - Above & Beyond, Sander van Doorn, Gareth Emery, Cosmic Gate, Andy Moor and John O'Callaghan to name but a few – are all that's really required.     

Sometimes though (and Digital Society understand this) there are barriers to getting there... Incarceration, incapacitation & living the other side of the planet are just three perfectly valid reasons why you might not make through the door of the north’s best trance night. Being the typically facilitating lot they are though they're about to bring – once again - the sound of the Society to you.

This time out, on the mix of the twin discs, they have A&A …Entirely different to A&B and nothing to do with breakdown assistance, it is in fact local lad Activa and from just a bit lower down the country, white-hot Ashley Wallbridge. Between them they’re constructed two discs that bristle with big names, rapacious bass & beats and synths that matter. Big names you say? Try Max Graham, Andy Moor, Ronski Speed, John Askew & Lange... and that's just for starters. DS III isout on the 13th September and you can check out the video trailer, track samples and preorder details at enhancedmusic.com/dsvol3

When you start to add up what it really takes to get a label from its first release to its hundredth, the brain starts to mash a bit. A hundred recording contracts, a hundred + remixes and unquestionably more than a hundred A&Ring hours…. probably more like a thousand. And that's all just for starters.

It is where High Contrast find themselves this month though – sitting pretty on the tipping point of their triumphant century release. As a label H.C. didn’t have the most regular of start-ups. Dick de Groot - the man who sits in charge of it all – spent the first half of the last decade honing his honch-ing skills for ID&T. When the music giant called time on their label division, he picked up the catalogue, set up operations across the street and re-launched with a High Contrast vision. Since then he and the crew have overseen the sound-reconstruction of Rank 1 & Wippenberg, turned Nic Chagall into a star in his own right & made techno-trance legends of Marcel Woods and Jochen Miller.

To give them a fittingly large hundredth release, 3 of their most influential acts have collaborated on a track called (what else but) ‘100’. Nic Chagall, Rank 1 & Wippenberg gathered around a studio desk (bit of a squeeze, but they all got in!) to create a track that does full justice to this label landmark. It's out on the 14th of June and just 3 days prior to that will see the arrival of ‘The Best of High Contrast – The Story So Far’. Weighing in at 50 tracks, across a bursting CD trifeca, it provides a point-to-point tour of their history thus-far. One that includes such luminary tracks as ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, ‘Life Less Ordinary’, ‘Chakalaka’, ‘Advanced’ and ‘LED - There Be Light’.

Last summer Temple One and Estiva launched Enhanced’s Sessions series with a cracking deuce of discs. A year later and the label are back with a second volume lined up and just in time for you to pack a copy in with your swimmers and sangria vouchers for this year’s run to the sun.

So who's mixng hot on Pt.2 then? Well, in the red corner, and boxing clever are Tritonal – two men who have been steadily cruising up the prominence ranks over the last two years. Branching out from their native Texas, they’ve now brought their careful balanced melodic/euphoric floor-mix to every major US city and are now starting to export it international.

Over in the blue corner it's the 2nd most famous Ferry in trance music, and unquestionably the most famous one to come out of France! Ferry Tayle has been wowing many a crowd over the last 12 months, both with his productions and his DJ sets. ‘Trapeze’ and L’Acrobat’ have both become endorphine trip-switches on many floors and with gigs like Trance Energy and already under his belt, he's plenty ready to fly.

In terms of what they’ve brought to the album, well it’s quite literally one name after another. If you don’t believe us jump onto Enhanced's shiny new website and see for yourself!

We allowed ourselves a minute to reminisce before starting this feature (just the one mind, it’s been a busy month!). Marcel Woods was our very first 5 Minutes With… interview back in our launch issue in 2008. There,  the subject of discussion was Musical Madness 1 and with a symmetry bordering on perfection, he’s returns this month with a 2nd chapter!

Illustrating the title perfectly, M.M.’s directional needle swings all the way from the foothills of warm house right upt to mountainous speaker-scything techno. As eclectic and diverse as the collated audio gets though, the thrust of the mix stays completely, coherently on track – a feat in itself.

'Musical Madness' also acts like a magnetic hub for harder-to-pin-down artists. Aside from his own tracks, no.2 is kicking up new EDM by everyone from Marco V, Nic Chagall, Sebastian Krieg, Jerome Isma-Ae, Koen Groeneveld and Jonas Stenberg – a virtual who's who of people that don’t fit easily into one single musical bracket. And that, in its essence, is the attraction of Musical Madness... you never know quite know what's around the corner of the next mix!

In his career to date Matt Darey can lay claim to being a pioneer in two distinct musical quarters. UK trance vanguard.... that's a given. But then, perhaps more impressive yet he spotted the massive potential in internet radio before just about any other contemporary out there... and went for it!

His Nocturnal Radio Show has become part of the worldwide radio station establishment thanks to two key factors... Having enjoyed his time as an out-and-out trance artist he quickly began to expand the show's music remit resulting in a wide-ranging listener demographic. In tandem with this he threw himself into the show and radio DJing in general with such singlemindedness and dedication that the words ‘Nocturnal’ and ‘Matt Darey’ are now virtually synonymous.

Given that it’s now been on the air for five years and is now broadcast on 130 stations every week it’s perhaps surprising that it’s not spawned a companion compilation before.  Better late than not at all though - by the time you read this Nocturnal the album will be among us. The 2 disc, 22 tracker is coolly representative of the show’s musical policy. There's some US slanted material on there; notable among them Morgan Page, Syvia Tosun and Robbie Rivera. There are the big trance shouts too, with Ridgewalkers, First State, and Feel & Alexander Popov representing and some outside-the-box house stuff too - Timo Garcia's latest conclusively catching our ear.

They are, to absolutely all intents and purposes, his ‘see you soon’ communiqués to that big loveable lump of white rock in the middle of the Med. The island we go to get our fix of sun, fun, beach, bar and club… just as often as the banks (or credit card company) tell us it’s ok to do so!

Yes indeed, Magic Island, the compilation, is back for its 3rd outing on June 11th just in time to provide a sound springboard into summer. Within hours of completing it, the ever-convivial Roger Shah dropped us a call on the T.I. hotline to clue us in on what to expect from ‘chronicle 3’. Again impressively (if you think about how much work goes into achieving such a feat), it’s a 100% exclusive track-attack of beach-to-bar, bar-to-club music. The first thing that caught our attention was ‘Found’; the Sunlounger ‘sequel’ to ASOT’s 2008 Tune of the Year’, and again it carries the vocals of the very easy-on-the-eye Zara Taylor. Also hitting heavy is the Roger/Signum track ‘Ancient World’ (their ‘Healesville Sanctuary’ follow-up) and a new Black Pearl track with Ralph Fritsch. Roger has also done a first collaboration with Leon Bolier and there’s a lotta hot-off-the-desk new material from Nuera, Walsh & Mcauley, Semantica & Dimension (to name just a few) too.

Aside from giving us a really lovely bit of audio ‘kit’ to take on our holiday, Roger Shah’s Magic Island compilations also serve an even subtler purpose. They are something akin to a Roger Shah ‘audio expo’ - a display of future wares that he presents, with the somewhat astute side purpose of seeing which tracks come out on top of the popularity pile. So if you’re a forum regular bare this in mind when you’re posting. His team is listening!

Taking label/club cooperation to new heights this month, High Contrast and well-established Polish institution, enTrance have gotten together to make sure that this year’s event kicks… extra hard! A big 1-2-3 of interconnected happenings are on their collective agenda – read on!

The drum started to beat on this big trifecta back in January when Armin van Buuren plucked a (till that point) secret collaboration weapon out of his bag for the first ASOT of 2010. Rank 1 & Jochen Miller’s ‘The Great Escape’ promptly scored the ‘Tune of the Week’ gong and was also unveiled as the enTrance 2010 anthem.

That though was merely an oer d’oeuvre warm-up, as hot on its heels came news of ‘enTrance Presents High Contrast’ – a Rank 1 & Jochen Miller 2XCD mix-fest. Ablaze with a fusillade of new High Contrast (and others!) audio-tronics, by any measure it’s a speaker-roaster of a collection!
The latest floor-weapons from artists including Marco V, Richard Durand, Marcus Schossow, Alex Kunnari, Cor Fijneman, DJ Preach & Re-Ward are all onboard. ‘enTrance Presents High Contrast’ was released last Monday, which was just in time for…

The big event itself! Last Saturday iIn Bydgoszcz (just north of Warsaw) High Contrast hosted their own stage at this year’s mighty enTrance (think Poland’s answer to Trance Energy!). Fielding a heavy-hitting team of DJ’s including Wippenberg, Jonas Stenberg and, yes, pivotally Rank 1 & Jochen Miller, they brought High Contrast’s hybrid soundscape to the Polish clubbing masses.

On a Friday night, towards the end of last month at the Ministry, Trance International watched as Markus Schulz brought The Gallery’s ever-faithful trance-hungry hoards (no more proof of that needed than the dismal weather outside) to near-instant boiling point… and then kept them there for 3 unwavering hours. Another city visited, another one rocked – just one of the 17 he touched down in over the course of that month.

Markus likes cities - his ‘metropolis-centric’ approach has been a pivotal component of the Schulz M.O. since his first compilation back in 2005. This month sees the release of the 2010 edition, which this time has him homing in on Las Vegas - a place that's embraced him as much as he’s embraced it…

We’ve had more than your average number of spins through the album over the last two weeks. From the first beats of Clinch’s ode to Rain (this time we’re talking about the of Vegas club, as opposed to the weather condition!) to the closing finale of Shogun’s ‘Connected’, it mantains an energy level that’s hard to beat. On the way there are some exceptionally fine (and exclusive) tracks. Picking individual ones from the 29 strong collection is a task in itself, but Rex Mundi’s ‘Opera of Northern Ocean’, Veselin Tasev’s trancendental ‘Pacific Waves’ & the Robert Burian produced, Zdenka Predna vocalled ‘You’ were noticeably getting some extremely heavy ‘click back’ action.

Way too early in 2010 for ‘Compilation of the Year’ proclamations, but we’ll say this: you’ll miss ‘Las Vegas ‘10’ at your great peril! It's out through iTunes on the 15th of Feb, with the CD following on the 22nd.

This month the Deep sub-detachment of Anjuna (although we more often view it in a standalone older/younger brother type fashion these days) will unveil their second compilation excursion. Mixed by label helmsman James Grant and one of its most prodigious producers, Jaytech, Volume 2 is every inch ‘01’s grand successor. On the latter album the pair formed a remix alliance; one which you’ll quickly spot from the first track of the follow-up has evolved into an original production mandate. From ‘Moth’s languid early moves ‘Anjunadeep 02’ sweeps the board with tracks from the cooler end - stalwarts like Oliver Smith, Paul Keeley, Michael Cassette, Boom Jinx & 16 Bit Lolitas providing. As the disc reaches its climax, the two James’ return with a cannot-be-missed revamp of BT’s ‘Flaming June’ – the parts for which they bagged from the man in the latter half of 2009.

There are naturally also some more up-‘n’-coming names previewing their latest wares and coming attractions on the album too - Jamie Matrix, Roddy Reynaert, Sergey Tkachev & Tom Fall numbered among them. Last and by no means least keep an eye out for Solarity’s ‘Red’ & ‘DNA’ tracks which respectively wrap up discs 1 & 2. Coming off like a latter-day Smith & Pledger, the two London lads will likely go far this year…

2009… That was the year that was, right? No doubt, but before we get too frothed up about the one ahead, Mr Paul van Dyk is on-hand to remind us of exactly how ‘dance-bountiful’ (!) the one just gone was.

‘VONYC Sessions 2009’ is a 31 track strong arsenal of all that was right about last three hundred and sixty five. Between PVD, VANDIT and the VONYC Sessions radio show, the three institutions went a fair way to defining it musically. Naturally on the CD and download there are plenty of PVD tracks, but, to give its some extra spice, most of them are coming at you in their remixed versions. ‘Words’, ‘Nothing But You’, ‘Home’ & ‘We Are One’, in their retold production form, are lynch-pinning the album’s tracklist with the likes of Jerome Isma-Ae, Super8 & Tab, Cosmic Gate & Giuseppe Ottaviani operating the remix controls.

You’re also going to be well tricked-out with a head-spinning array of VANDIT gear too. Regular contributors Alex M.O.R.P.H., Filo & Peri and that man Ottaviani are all well represented, with 10 tracks between them. Given that they all had debut albums out last year, it more than stands to reason! The up-and-coming crew is also peppering the VONYC Sessions tracklist too, with Ben Nicky, Adam Foley, Sky Motion, Barry Jay seeing their latest floor-busters going under Paul’s CDJ laser.

VONYC Sessions 2009 Presented by Paul van Dyk is on shops now and available through Beatport.

15… It’s a pretty healthy age for a compilation series, isn’t it? While others have fallen by the wayside, ever since their 001 mixed-by-Misja-Helsloot debut in 1998, In Trance We Trust has just kept on truckin’!

2010 starts bright and particularly early for the label with a testosterone-trance compilation mixed by Virtual Vault aka Ben Huijbregts. Under that moniker he’s a one man production outfit that, of late, has come quick to the lips (and even quicker to the CDJs) of Tiësto, Ferry Corsten and Armin van Buuren with the ITWT-released track-quartet of ‘Definition’, ‘Request’, ‘Boundary’ and ‘Experience’.

A refresher listen to any of those tracks will give you some idea at least of what’s in store on In Trance We Trust 15. That though is a long way from the complete picture. You’re also in line for some pretty special new ‘n’ exclusive auxiliary audio action from the likes of BT, Kimito Lopez, Trebbiano, Estuera and last and by no means least, Allure. With the tracklist just released and a very welcome outing from Tiësto’s best known side-project locked in place you have to think to yourself: how good is 2010’s looking already!?

By every account John O’Callaghan’s has had a very lively 2009. He released his debut album, ‘Never Fade Away’ - a much-lauded long-player that has so far spawned 3 fittingly-large singles. Included in and amongst that cluster was ‘Find Yourself’, the natural heir to the ‘Big Sky’ crown and one that did rather well in the Trance Awards Best Single category last month! Add to that some huge Cream Ibiza moments, promptly followed by another very healthy showing in the Top 100 DJs poll (jumping 36 places to the No.24 position) and it’s odds-on that John must be pretty pleased with how he’s played the cards dealt in ’09.

Now as the year begins to draw to a close, he’s back (to make absolutely sure you remember it really was the year he ruled!) with his new compilation, Subculture.

A packed double disc-er of testosterone-charged trance, its boasting plenty of the production material that aficionados of his set-lists would expect. Musical drop-shots from Patterson, Stein, Activa, Tyas, Hardwick, Colontonio and Ottaviani speed through the speaker cables in quick succession. There’s is of course plenty of new ‘n’ exclusive JOC’s material ready to debut on the comp, including ‘Cramped’, ‘Backup’ & ‘Striker’.

‘Godskitchen’, ‘Pure’ & ‘Trance’… 3 words, we think, likely to have maximum resonation with the T.I. readership! We also wager that what you lot don’t already know about G.K., probably could be written on the back of a postage stamp. Hence, we thought we’d just dive straight into the music!

‘Pure Trance Anthems’ is not one of your greatest hits-style outings. There is though a beguiling smatter of Fragmas, BBEs & Ton TBs on there – all, it must be said, given some fine new remix spit ‘n’ polishes. The album is much more about squeezing as many hot-out-of-the-studio, floor-quaking trance tracks as possible onto its 3 discs. As you’d expect from G.K., it bears more than your average number of heavyweight artists. Paul van Dyk’s ‘Home’ & Armin’s stunning Gaia ‘Tuvan’ track are on there, as is Tiësto’s ‘I Will Be Here’. You’re also in for some equatorially-hot number-age from Above & Beyond, Ferry Corsten, Sander van Doorn, Marco V, Richard Durand, Deadmau5 & Chicane.

On the more underground side, well there’s nuff stuff going on there too! Adam K & Soha’s poignant recreation of Reflekt’s already pretty poignant ‘Need to Be Loved’ was doing great things to our office this morning, as was Gareth Emery’s remix of M.I.K.E.’s ‘Sunrise at Palamos’.

Godskitchen Pure Trance Anthems is out now on 3XCD. Digital download is available at HMV.com and iTunes now, release date for all other digital stores 16th November.

It was oooh… pretty much exactly this time last year that we sat down to write the first ever Trance International feature; one about the then-imminent release of Anjunabeats - Vol.6. One year and almost 100 features later (yay, happy birthday us, etc!) with textbook symmetry we’re back with headline news of the Above & Beyonders 7th Anjunabeats compilation expedition. It actually seems like it was barely last week that we were picking out our favourite tracks from No.6 and only a month or so before that we first popped part 5 into the CD draw. Almost without realizing it the Anjunabeats Volumes have grown into one of the most seriously-intentioned & longest running trance comp series in existence.

Above & Beyond’s primary label have again been hitting one home run after another in 2009. On the honour roll for this release are plenty of Anjuna’s nucleus producers; Oliver Smith, Mat Zo, Boom Jinx, Nitrous Oxide & Adam Nickey among them. There are also mighty tasty offerings from Super8 & Tab, Daniel Kandi, Mike Shiver & Sunny Lax, and gear from tenderfoot talent like Answer 42, Velvetine & Solarity. The A&B 3 are of course also in the thick-of-the-mix action with their new track ‘Anjunabeach’ coming onto the field late in the first half. There’s also the now-famously produced-in-24-hours-in-Ibiza remix of Dirty Vegas’ ‘Tonight’. Waiting patiently to be discovered on disc 3’s DVD you’ll be greeted by ‘A Dog With A Smile’ – the latest enigmatically-titled Above & Beyond film.

The first one tickled our summertime bones in precisely the right fashion last year, and just as we were starting to scan the stores for something likeminded to update it, ‘Volumos Dos’ cruises into view. Now that’s what we call timing!

The wonderful isle of Ibiza, its fair to say, has touched the majority of us at one point or another. It seems to have struck Roger Shah even more than most though. He just can’t get enough of the place, and that’s something that is reflected in the vast majority of his output.

‘Magic Island – Music for Balearic People Vol. 2’ is another master-class in the art of melodic trance. Providing one last gasp for summer, this edition boasts the very cream of the crop from his current and fast-approaching Magic Island material. It probably goes without saying that Roger is well represented on the album himself. You’d expect nothing else from a man with his production ethic (three long-players notched up in 2008, lest we forget). In and amongst the goodness you’ll find Sunlounger’s ‘Change Your Mind’, Black Pearl’s ‘Rise’ and Savannah’s ‘Darling Harbour’. Elsewhere there’s ‘Hold On’, Roger’s first team-up with Judge Jules is on-board, as well as new collabs with Signum ('Healesville Sanctuary') and Tenishia (following up their 'You're So Cool') with smash-to-the-bassline, 'I'm Not God'.

He’s the man with the luckiest surname in the whole history of electronic dance music. Firstly it comes equipped with the not inconsiderable ‘Van’ cachet; something some might consider to be a golden ticket in itself. It's also though has that endlessly adaptable ‘Riel’ word too and that’s something that SVR's made a fine stock out of since he jet-packed onto the scene just 12 short months ago.

After becoming a Dance4Life Ambassador in late 2008 and taking home the ‘Best Newcomer’ gong at the Trance Awards (all in the same month) he’s gone on to qualify that win in no uncertain terms. In April he played an extraordinary 7 major international gigs in just 9 days, in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Rocking all four Trance Energy Oz nights, he then promptly followed it up with Armin’s triple-whammy of ASOT400 events. That’s on top of a cold-gettin-hectic production schedule that’s born freakishly large fruit with tracks like ‘Closer to You’, ‘MME’, ‘Contrasts’ and... ‘Rush’. A track, it has to be said, that Trance International habitually twins with a 8 cups of black coffee to get its engines going on a Monday morning.

In September Sied is once again swinging that fortuitous surname into action with ‘In Riel Time’, his first compilation proposition. Both the ‘old’ and new Dutch dance guard share laser-time across the CDs… Ferry’s on there and there’s a bit of Sander too. By the same token though so are newer dance explorers like Jan Oostdyk, W&W & Claes Rosen. Sied’s new track ‘Mongoosed’ (more caffeine-infused ‘Rush’-like business – check it!) is of course firmly in place and all-in-all ‘In Riel Time’ is squaring up like a compilation cage fighter ready to duke it out for the title of ‘Trance Comp of the Year’. It's out through Spinnin' on the 31st of August.

Short of sitting outside Cafe del Mar watching the sun do that thing its does with the sea, Privilege’s space station-like ‘super-dome’ is probably the single greatest sight in the whole wide world of Ibiza. Visible from miles around, it’s the iconic clubbing landmark that sends shivers of pre-club anticipation down the spines of tens of thousands of clubbers every year. Once famously the home of Manumission, it’s now the likes of Tiësto’s Monday night monster, Vath’s Cocoon and Picotto’s Meganite that create those snaking queues, post-midnight.

In the form of a double CD mixed compilation (entitled, appropriately enough, ‘Privilege – The World’s Biggest Club’) , this month sees the release of a new testament (no, not the Bible kind!) to her pan-decade spanning influence.

Disc 1 features none other than Teutonic trance trailblazers Cosmic Gate doing what they do best. Namely whipping together 80 minutes of deep, twisting trance mayhem. Taking the finest, most forward-thinking music available to man or beast in 2009, Nic Chagall and Bossi have weaved tracks from the likes of Moonbeam, Alex O’Rion, Wippenberg and Mark Norman into a rhapsodic blend. Disc 2 flips the musical polarity to house with current young gun Hardwell doing comparably fine things with tunes from Funkerman, Ad Brown, Kid Massive and Russell G.

‘Privilege’ is out next Monday (the 22nd of June) through all major retailers and download resellers.

As sacrosanct music journo Kris Needs points out in his forward to Art of Trance’s ‘Retrospective’ album, Platipus Records is not a conventional trance label. For one they’re still in existence! That, for an imprint that sent forth its first vinyl dispatch in 1993, means they’re currently running at roughly 3 times the life expectancy of the average dance label. It’s also never succumbed to ‘Dance Music Inc.’ either, the post-millennium, often-misguided ‘the bigger we get, the better we are’ ethos.

Platipus owner Simon Berry can lay claim to a good few plaudits and achievements himself too. ‘Founder of the First UK Trance Label’ would be one. ‘Original pioneer of Melodic Trance’ is another. He was, after all, the very first man on planet earth to spot the potential in, and obtain the squiggle of Robert Miles for the license of ‘Children’. And last and by no means least, Mastermind Behind Art of Trance!

Simon’s ‘Retrospective’ album is a 3XCD compendium comprising of the first two (long-since deleted) Art of Trance albums. Seminal in the extreme, they are must-owns for anyone serious about their history of trance. The release kicks of with 1996’s ‘Wildlife On One’; an album which produced the singles ‘Deeper Than Deep’, ‘Gloria’ and ‘Cambodia’. ‘Wildlife’ was followed in 1999 by ‘Voice Of Earth’, which in turn gave A.O.T. his most quickly-associated moment, the quite unforgettable ‘Madagascar’. That track pops up too on the last disc too (albeit in its wilfully out-there Richard Durand remix form), for Simon’s 80-minute compilation excursion. Taking in a fair few AOT anthems (including the latest single ‘Swarm’), it mixes in some of Berry’s remix highs too, including his remaps of Tekara’s ‘Wanna Be An Angel’ and Jan Johnston’s ‘Calling You Name’.

OceanLab (Above & Beyond and Justine Suissa) are out with their ‘Sirens of the Sea Remixed’ album this month. Avoiding any and all nautical and/or oceanographically-orientated clichés at every cost, T.I. took a dive into it to see what trance treasure we could bring to the surface!

In general the protocol for any artist’s remix album is very much ‘assemble the very finest array of remix talent possible, stand back and await the floor-fireworks’. In that quarter ‘Sirens’ has its mojo working overtime. Disc 1 alone sports track remaps from Jaytech, Michael Cassette, Andy Duguid & Gareth Emery, re-charting ‘If I Could Fly’, ‘Come Home’, ‘On The Beach’ and ‘Lonely Girl’ respectively.

Switching discs and Pt2 has an even greater spread in terms of both sound and appeal. Andrew Bayer, Myon & Shane 54, 16 Bit Lolitas, Sonorous and Duderstadt are all furiously pimping tracks right across the trance and prog range. In a final (and we think very cool) touch it concludes with a quartet of OceanLab’s earliest offerings as Ferry’s remix of ‘Clear Blue Water’, Armin’s turn on ‘Sky Falls Down’, Signum’s ‘Beautiful Together’ and A&B’s ‘Satellite’ all come under the laser.

www.anjunabeats.com

It seems like only six months ago (probably because it was!) that we were hungrily devouring Leon Bolier’s debut artist album ‘Pictures’ . Never one to stand still when there’s running to be done, he’s back this month, dropping his first solo compilation. ‘Streamlined 2009’ is a whistle-stop 2-disc tour into the ‘trance with a twist’ musical world of La Bolier. Subtitled ‘Buenos Aires 2009’, the album draws much of its inspiration from Leon’s South American tour, which went off to packed clubs in March of this year.

As is the necessity with releases from the top level of trance producer/DJs these days, the album comes fully-loaded with brand-spanking-new cuts. Leon has been hard at it in the studio getting 3 fresh, previously unheard, solo speaker-smelters onto ‘Streamlined’ in the forms of ‘St Kilda’ ‘Medellin’ and ‘Lunar Diamond’. Also very much onboard is ‘Last Light Tonight’ (the much-vaunted re-teaming with Menno de Jong), a new remix of ‘Pictures’ track ‘Beyrouth’ and ‘This’, which has this month’s T.I. obsession Floria Ambra on vocals.

There are also some great, exclusive turns from Cliff Coenraad, Joop and Jan Oostdyk in the mix, displaying, once again, the ever-present spirit of Dutch compatriot-ness among the country’s producers. ‘Streamlined 2009 – Buenos Aires’ comes in CD, DD and 2X12” Double Pack (featuring tracks hand-picked by Leon) formats, which you can get a hold of via Beatport, Bol, Amazon, 4DJsOnly and Astral Music as of today!

Giving your compilation CD the edge it needs to stand out these days is no easy trick. You need a nifty conceit or a fresh idea to fully-engage the mind of the trance & progressive fan. Failing that its ‘spring for some gold-leaf packaging and hope for the best’! One thing that never ever goes a miss though is plain, old-fashioned hard graft… and the easily-evidenced kind at that.

In that regard stepping up to the plate, in quite considerable form this month is Blake Jarrell , who has either remixed or outright produced every single 1 of the 25 tracks on his new compendium. Entitled ‘Concentrate’ (something he probably had to remind himself to do a fair bit), Armin’s protégée, eschewed the gigs and locked himself into a steadfast studio routine at the start of the year. The mission: to finish the productions he needed to complete the ‘Concentrate’ project.

The first disc (which contains just the 11 Blake Jarrell remixes!) tacks between reworks of better known production names like Gabriel & Dresden, Arnej and Kyau & Albert, while reserving enough disc space for some lesser known entities too. Astrid Suryanto, Dobenbeck & Nosmo & Kris B among them. The 2nd disc meanwhile has more of Jarrell’s original material, including the bare-faced funk of ‘Take Care’ and the sonically-superb ‘Tadanka’. It’s a coolly engaging prog-trance listen… One that (not unexpectedly given he’s had put hands to all the included material) makes for a very cohesive listen.

If you live inside the United Kingdom chances are weighted that over the last 24 months Digital Society has very much flown onto your radar. If you don’t, well don’t feel bad. To date it’s been a decidedly UK thing. All that’s set to change though as this new force in British clubbing is about to drop its first big international calling card.

Based in Leeds, Digital Society launched their first night back in early 2007. Despite the furiously competitive field, they rapidly rose to prominence, thanks largely to its almost unnerving accurate ability to spot new DJs on the march, booking 12 UK debuts in two years. The packed floors and the glowing reports back from the DJs who’ve played go a long way to explaining the secret to their success. So anyway, back to that calling card! Mixed by beloved-by-the-masses spin-meister general, Matt Hardwick and the club’s resident Kane Nelson, ‘Digital Society International Vol 1’ is their first compilation broadcast to the world. Featuring a musical embarrassment of riches, both the titular ‘Headliner’ and ‘Resident’ discs are crammed up to bursting with the kind of trance tub-thumpers that start getting us all ‘club-twitchy’ by Thursday lunchtime! Coming through Enhanced Recordings, it features new speaker-spankers from John Askew, Darren Tate, Sean Tyas, Tom Colontonio, Temple One and Activa. You can win 1 of 5 copies of ‘Digital Society International Vol 1’ by simply e-mailing us at competition@tranceinternational.com and telling us whether Enhanced boss (and fellow Digital Society resident) Will Holland is actually from Holland?!

Mondo Supremos Darren Tate & Dale Corderoy are back next month with the second installment in ‘The Mondo Sessions’ series. Akin to their back-to-back sets of late, the pair are sharing input on both of the two discs, kicking things off with Andy Duguid spine-tingling ‘Wasted’. Tthe Sunsetters disc winds along a suitably chilled-out path. Along the way it takes in Arney S.’ Sunday Morning Walk’ & The Filterheadz ‘A Day at the Beach’, no prizes, we think, for guessing what inspired those titles! It then sets the scene for the 2nd disc with Daniel Kandi’s ridiculously uplifting hotwire of Masters and Nickson’s ‘5th Dimension’. With the euphoria handle firmly cranked, the Daybreakers disc let’s rip with more floor-fueling material, including Oliver Smith’s ‘Cirrus’, Super8 & Tab’s latest ‘Delusion’, Oceanlab’s ‘Breaking Ties’ and Tate’s own ‘As The Days Grow Old’. So seaside atmosphere or club-side power, Mondo Sessions002 has the run of it!

‘The Mondo Sessions Vol.2’ is out on the 2nd of March and will be available through all the regular digital and physical channels. With your appetite suitably whetted, and to ensure maximum ‘upfront-ness’, you can pre-order it now, direct from the www.mondorecords.com/sessions webpage.