After their big success with the “Moscow” mix compilation, Dubfire and Sharam aka Deep Dish are back in full straight at Global Underground. The first disc is a groovy house mix, with deep funky rhymes and features tracks from Louie Vega, Stephane K. and Sultan, mixed with some old but still timeless tracks. The second CD is progressive house at it best, with tracks from  Situation 2wo, Elisa, Junkie XL + Sasha, James Holden, Miro, and a new track from Sander Klienenberg. To celebrate the 25^th Global Underground release, Dubfire and Sharam has done each their own limited “afterclub” mix CD that will be released at the end of June. The double CD “Toronto” compilation is also released as a limited triple vinyl release.

Welcome to JXL Radio, and what a fantastic radio station Tom Holkenborg has put together. On this double CD he blends break beat, trance, progressive, ambient, pop, rock, reggae and other bits and pieces. Disc one, called “3PM” is the daytime radio with a mixture of dance and pop music. He has been working with many different singes of his own choosing. Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode on “Reload”, Robert Smith from The Cure on “Perfect Blue Sky”, Saffron (from Republica) on 3 tracks including the brilliant hit “Beauty Never Fades” and with Gary Numan on the wonderful “Angels”. His collaboration with world renowned DJ Sasha on the track “Breezer” can be found on the second program 3AM, that reflects the night time radio, it starts slowly and builds. Also included are the extended version of “Beauty Never Fades” and “Angels” together with some other great tracks like “Dubzilla” and “Chilled” that sounds like tracks from Sasha’s “Airdrawndagger” album that Tom Holkenborg co-produced last year. This is the best electronic artist album of the year so far and no doubt that Junkie XL is a must see, when he plays live at this year Roskilde Festival.

“Dreamchasing” is a wonderful example of what the electronic music has come to. It has a gentle dreamy flow and the tracks keep on coming with innovating build-ups, it’s a mixture of trance, progressive and chill-out – a little difficult to place into a genre, and that’s the beauty of it, you won’t go tired listening to tracks like “People Will Believe”, “Thanx”, “Testpilot” and “Levitate”. The Dutch producer Jamez has over the years been and is a part of the progressive outfits Trancesetters, Tata Box Inhibitors and 52 Days just to name a few. No doubt that this producer has a bright future ahead of him and underlines the strength of Holland’s position on the electronic music scene right now. The album is also released on vinyl and “People Will Believe” is out as a double 12” single with a Quivver remix.

This is the year of the Matrix - no doubt about that. First “Reloaded” later in the year the conclusion “Revolutions”, the game “Enter The Matrix” and now the animated version of the Matrix - The Animatrix - out on DVD, with 9 short stories animated by some of the worlds best animators. The soundtrack features tracks by Adam Freeland, Layo & Bushwacka!, Photek, Death In Vegas, Juno Reactor. Junkie XL´s haunting “Beauty Never Fades” is also included in a special Animatrix edit together with Peter Kruder´s dark and mysterious “Who Am I”. As a special feature the soundtrack also includes two tracks not featured in the anime; Junkie XL´s “Red Pill, Blue Pill” and Tech Itch´s “The Real”. Enjoy the soundtrack, see the animations and play the game to get deeper into the matrix.

Currently the worlds best DJ, Tiesto embarks on a two disc journey. "`The Inside` CD is the warm, slower, more progressive, melodic music I play and `The Outside` sounds like how I play at an outdoor festival or at a bigger event. It`s a bit harder and faster, with some techno influence, and a little more uplifting." he explains. The compilation features 27 tracks, and just to highlight some of them; Planisphere “Totem”, James Holden “Nothing”, Lema “Requiem For A Dream” and three of his own remixes, "Venus (Meant To Be Your Lover)" by DJ Cor Fijneman featuring Jan Johnston, Conjure One “Tears From The Moon” and The Roc Project “Never”. Also included in the mix is ”Obsession," a collaboration between Junkie XL and Tiesto, and the icing of the cake is his new track called “Nyana” – what a beauty.

On the 19th of May (6th of May in the US) Timo Maas will release the volume 2 of his very successful “Music For The Maases” witch includes remixes, and an exclusive new Timo Maas track “Unite” that also is out as  a promo on Hope Recordings. On The CD you can find the following remixes: Kelis “Young fresh and new”, Garbage “Breaking up the girl”, Starecase “See”, Moloko “Familiar Feeling”,  Haktan O`Nal “Subfreakie”, Spice “69 overdrive”, Fatboy Slim “Star 69”,  BT “Never Gonna Come Back Down”, Moby “We are all made of stars” and Placebo “Special K”. All mixed together in one continues mix. With the limited edition of the CD a bonus DVD is included that shows the life of Timo Maas in the fast lane, travelling with him to Peru, Brazil, Columbia and other parts of South America, including interviews and live performances.

For the movie “Stark Raving Mad” John Digweed and Nick Muir, also know as Bedrock, have produced 6 new tracks and collected the music used in the movie on a double compilation CD. The music used in the movie is primary tracks from the Bedrock label with a few tracks taken from other labels. This shows the broad span of music styles that the Bedrock label has released over its now 40 releases. Included are also new tracks from, Moonface, Pako & Frederick and Voyager, giving us a peek into what to come on Bedrock label in the near future. The tracks are mixed with vocal snips from the movie itself, so each track stands for itself, and is not a continuous mix. This is a must for all lovers of the Bedrock progressive sound.

The second instalment of the Underwater label compilations series, sees label boss Darren Emerson return to the mixing console together with Mutiny. Darren Emerson’s mix is a slamming house mix with tech house elements. Tracks from Paul Jackson, GusGus and Tim Deluxe are included in the mix. Mutiny’s mix kicks off with a funny piano track and moves into more disco funky house style, and keeps on going. Tracks included from Derek Carter, Robbie Revera, Kid Crème and Mutiny themselves. The overall impression of this double album is full on party album with a joyous feeling running throughout the album.

A Ferry Corsten album released only for the Asian continent. One can ask, why not releasing it worldwide…perhaps some of the tracks on the album will see the light on his upcoming album release. The album consists of 15 tracks, where one of the tracks is the “Ligaya” track by Gouryella and another is the theme that Ferry did for the Dance Valley. The sound is Ferry as we know and love him, driving trance tracks with great builds up, breaks and melodies. So far you can only get this as import.

A complete new compilations series from Global Underground has seen the light with Danny Howells behind the decks for the fist instalment. This is not the ordinary style of music that you can find on the Global Underground’s very successful series. “24:7” is funky, jazzed, chilled, sexy, relaxed electronic music with a touch of tech-house that encapsulates you for over 2 hours - very nice Mr. Howells. It is always great to be introduced to another part of the musical universe. I only know a handful of the 27 names that are included over the two CD’s called “Day” and “Night”; DJ Shadow “You Can’t Go Home Again”, Bent “An ordinary Day” and Laurent Garnier “Sambou” who closes the set. Great that Global Underground dares to part with their winning formula and to explore other parts of the electronic music genres.

The soundtrack of the second Matrix movie features 9 hard hitting rock tracks and 3 tracks that will appeal to all electronic music freaks. Paul Oakenfold delivers a driving track called “Dread Rock” (used under the car chase), Fluke with the “Zion” track (used under the “dance” scene at Zion) and Paul Oakenfold remix of the end theme “When The World Ends” by Dave Matthews Band. The other disc includes the original soundtrack done by non other than Ben Watkins (Juno Reactor) and Don Davis, a tour de force in the now known Matrix score and Ben’s pulsating percussion electronic music. The CD set also includes an interactive piece including previews and trailers for game and movies. Enter the matrix soundtrack and you will get a feel of the atmosphere of this fabulous trilogy that will be concluded in November 2003.

Slow Train is Lady Z and the Danish electronic virtuous Morten Varano’s new project after Morten’s break with Alex Puddo that he made Puddu Varano with. With the release of Puddu Varano “Time To Grow”, Morten signed Lady Z a multi talented vocalist, guitarist and sing-songwriter that sang on their mayor hit “Blue Sky White Sand”. This partnership has progressed and Slow Train is a fascinating fusion of jazz, funk, urban, electronica, soundscapes, rhymes, drawing lyrics and the sensual voice of Lady Z. Slow Train is timeless. “Illegal Cargo” is a record that you totally can recharge and relax to.

The man behind the massive hit “Sandstorm” is back with a new album packed with dance, trance, progressive and chill out tracks. Ville Virtanen aka Darude has progressed from his earlier work and “Rush” sees him going forward and experiment with new styles and not resting on his known sound, though the “Drive” and “Passing by” tracks have snips of the old “Sandstorm” trademark. “Serendipity” sees him doing a real cooker of a progressive house track that simply is massive – let’s hope that this is going to be the forthcoming single. “Healing” has a strong influence of BT’esk build-up, piano and breaks and on “Ranta” Darude goes chill out. 

The second “World Tour” album in Ferry Corsten’s new trance mix series takes him to Washington. The mix is full on from the word go, kicking off with Altitude “Marrakech”, Three Drivers “Air traffic” and the brilliant “Protonic” by Sonorouns. His mix of Corderoy’s “Sweetest Dreams” and his own “Spaceman” are also included in the mix. No doubt that Ferry Corsten is one of the leading trance DJ’s today and has a terrific touch of what to include into mix, without going commercial and he sticks to his own belief of what works and what doesn’t.

With top notch remixes for Underworld “Jumbo” and “Cowgirl”, Moby “Porcelain” and Chemical Brothers “Music Response” and running their own records label Fuju, Phil Dockerty and Alex Tepper aka Futureshock has made their mark on the club scene. The first part of their debut album “Phantom Theory” is full of deep funky progressive bass line tracks like “Statikman” and “Another Hit”, “Late At Night” has a strong influences from Gary Numan’s “Are Friends Electric”. “On My Mind” features Ben Onono on vocals, and is currently hammering the charts. After “Satellite” the tempo goes down and Futureshock shows that they also can produce slow chillout tracks with a twist. Their massive floorfillers hits “Spac” and “Frequency” are also included.

The man who died for a few seconds, Dave Gahan has for over two decays thrilled his audience around the world with his energy and soulful voice as front singer of Depeche Mode. Now he is on his own - first time songwriter and has just released “Paper Monsters”. The album is composed with a multi-instrumentalist friend from New York, Knox Chandler, and produced by Ken Thomas of Sigur Rós fame. The album is full of electronic textures, rhymes and Dave’s known voice. The tracks vary from hard hitting electronic rock tracks, like the hit “Dirty Sticky Floors” to soft ballads like “A Little Piece” and my favourite “Hidden Houses”. One thing for sure, I will be at this years Roskilde Festival cheering for Dave, he has done an excellent debut album.

Hail to the king of progressive trance. Once more John 00 Fleming delivers an amazing mix of his choice of test pressings, promos, acetates, rare remixes and bootlegs. The second instalment of his White Label Euphoria series is a fantastic ride. CD 1 starts with Mandrake “Universal Soul” and kicks into Atmos’s remix of Saiko Pod’s “Phutures”, more Scandinavian influence follows with Minilouges remix of Greed’s “I see You” that moves into Human Blue’s “Street Pilot”. Forthcoming on the Baroque label Tkac & Haverlik’s “Tyra” takes over and the mix keeps on going with tracks from Airwave “I Want To Believe”, AR52 “Timegate”, Sonorous ”Protronic” and a new track by John himself, called “Le Voyage”. On CD2 John shows his appreciation for the psychedelic side of trance with tracks from Human Blue “Virtual Turnaround”, Alien Project “DJ Where Are you”, Astral Projection “Chaos” and Astrix “Massive Activity”, mixed with tracks from James Holden “Nothing” and Digital Blonde “Gothica” just to name a few. It’s amazing - the best compilation of 2003 so far, I can’t praise this compilation enough, this will stay on my CD deck at home and in my car for a long, long time.

Mixing it live gives a new dimension to the club experience in your home or in your car. Ferry Corsten takes on Spundae @ Circus in Los Angels with a storming set. The album is a trip into the word of trance, with tracks from Holden & Thomson “Nothing”, Mesh “Puple Haze”, Svenson & Gielen feat. Jan Johnson “Beachbreeze” and Afterburn “Summer Sun” just to name a few of the 16 tracks that are featured on the compilation. Not only do get the mix in stereo but also in 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound on the bonus DVD, that also incl. a documentary, slid show and Ferry Corsten´s “Punk” video.

DJ Hyper second “Compiled & mixed” collection of break beat tracks starts with the fabulous and spacious Momu “Sunsicle” and moves on with Terminalhead’s “Head Down”, the tempo is slowly rising and remixes of Paul Oakenfold, Timo Maas and PMT are presented in a fast pace. CD2 moves on from where CD1 left, but with a more twisty sound, and induces the listeners to tracks from Fatliners, General Midi, Proper Filthy Naughty, Dan F., and Hyper himself. So if Hybrid and the likes of them are your cup of tea, then don’t hesitate to invest in this break beat monster of an album. 

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