Keeping the train on the rails as we head ever further into an uncertain future, TT4 comes with another six tracks, once again gaily stretching the genre term to it's meaningful limits, mixing up new with old, fast with slow, deeper stuff with bangers. Ton TB (half of Three Drives / Greece 2000) opens proceedings with a rushy, linear, late night stomper 'Hurt You', before an OG progressive friend (first whites appeared in 92'... we signed it in 94/5' ) Frontier Man returns with a spritely hypno-tech rework from fellow, erm, man, Australian post lo-fi swashbuckler Fantastic Man. Talking of old friends, CM's 'Dream Universe' always occupied a slightly unique position within the Hooj Pantheon: as we've mentioned before, in his 1998 review of the track, DJ Mag's Ronnie Randall wrote that this was "a proper journey... but maybe all the journey's have been made now?", and we knew he was right, as far as we were feeling it... we never signed another trancer to Hooj, and never looked back (last bit = patently untrue, obvs). In early summer, Irish heavyweight Ciaran McAuley took the 2021 HEO electronic/orchestral cover and added a swathe of gleaming Emerald Isle energy, to create a fizzing, no frills peak-timer for his own sets, before passing on for our admiring gaze. Making a swift return after TT3 , Glenn Morrison has ratcheted up his and Aaya's own 'Twenty Something' into the propulsive neo psy-banger it was always meant to be, whilst welcome newcomer to the the label Jay Farina, fresh from a spring Hot Creations debut, dial things down a bit with the rolling, zoned in Balearica of 'Supernova'. Another TT3 veteran, Hansgod, rounds thing off on an altogether gentler note, as Heya bumps and builds into a hazy, MFA reminiscent throbber.

A bunch of middle aged blokes arguing on social media about whether their favoured brand of synthy euro dance is the true inheritor of the 'trance' tradition is a fine and dignified thing to behold, and after a recent Calvin Harris / Ellie Goulding Facebook free for all, Hooj is happy to try and add a bit of fuel to any remaining fire, via the latest instalment in our Trance Trax series. It's a hefty 6 tracker this time, four new, two remixes of oldies, and none of it likely to help anyone looking for cohesive genre definitions. Fort Romeau's unreleased dub of Lazonby's 'Sacred Cycles' is pulsing hypno house, Glenn Morrison's 'Twenty Something' a 118 bpm psy-chugger. Belgian ledge Jaydee's 'Black Book' is an immersive, drum heavy work out; Hansgod's 'Altension' a deep, filtering, techy affair. New comer Snubbelrisk's (Swedish : 'fear of falling' ) 'Snowfield' get's unabashedly expansive in it's own way, via emotive pads and soaring riffs, (but minus the whiff of iPhones in the air /_250k Vegas EDM gig fees). Finally, set closer Ben Gomori's remix of 'Love Stimulation' arguably owes as much to trances' (partial) roots in Italo Disco, as it does to the foundational early 90's MFS output from whence it came.