Contemporary Prog : Rewriting Trance History

I want to explore this scene more in depth at some point, but there's something so exciting about the progression of the new global psychedelic dance music scene that is carrying the banner of 'prog house'.

As a lover of all kinds of Trance from proto-goa to Armin van Buuren, I have dug pretty deep into the history of the sound. When I did I was surprised by the particulars of the sonic palette of that bubbled up from the west coast of California, corners of the UK, and then found it's audience among the post hippie expats in Goa who embraced the soupy squelchy euphoric psychedelic swirl.

I was also surprised at how quickly that particular palette was diluted to the point of non existence, and was replaced by four or five distilled, concentrated derivatives of the sound that became known as 'trance'.

In the last few years, let's say post 2020, the sound has come roaring back. I am not sure exactly what spurred the revival. Maybe it was the new crop of affordable, compact music hardware that made hardware jams realistic for the average dance producer. Maybe it was a resurgence of psychedelic use, driven by cultural forces and maybe some kind of supply factors beyond my comprehension. Maybe it is the long tail effect of trance classics worked into sets by the likes of Jackmaster and Mall Grab circa 2016, causing people to reassess the trance scene and dig into its history.

Whatever the cause, we are now deep into this new scene, and to my delight it's managed to get deeper, richer, and more sophisticated while neither minimalizing itself into tasteful oblivion nor amplifying itself into gross caricature.

It's like the global dance scene is getting a redo. An opportunity to pick up where the pioneers left off circa 1994 and progress the sound without compromising what makes it work. There are more great tracks in this style released in the last five years than were ever released in the initial run circa 1991-1994, and the scene is showing no sign of slowing down. I pray that it continues forever, but know that either way I'm going to be digging for records released from 2019-202* for the rest of my life.