#9 Top Releases in Trance (Raw / Deep / Hypnotic)

Ukrainian deep trance hero OTTO K returns with his third EP on EL-EL, delivering two slabs of underground, forest-tinged prog, both packed with psychedelic tension and widescreen detail. Portugal 99 leads the charge with eerie top-line melodies and sharp percussion, carving out a cinematic space between progressive trance and forest psychedelia, receiving early support from Standard Form and Mr Wright on their acclaimed Sunset Sessions 2024 mix. On the flip, Isolated Island ups the energy with a driving, percussive groove, mixing brooding atmospheres with melodic restraint- a heads down tool built for long, late hours. First up on remix duties is Jake Grace, whos Meteor Shower was a much loved cut on 2024s Plymouth Brethren EP (LOST191) - and hes back here with a peak-time take on Portugal 99, stretching out the central riff into an expansive, big-room moment. Lawn Jarre, an exciting young talent from China, completes the package with 2 versions of Isolated Island. The first is a deep, hypnotic interpretation soaked in mid-90s post Goa / pre World Tour 99 era Oakey textures (think Ecano, Dream Traveller, Pink Bomb…) while a sharper, club focused mix rounds things off, dialling up the intensity whilst maintaining the hypnosis.

Otto K

#9 Feat. Staff Picks in Trance (Raw / Deep / Hypnotic)

Were off to Leeds for LOST197 where JESH makes his EL-EL debut with the 21st-century-deep-trancer AFTERGLOW. Beautifully crafted, with a nod to the late 90s / early 00s big room prog of Mark Shimmon, Miller & Floyd, Christian West et al - its an exercise in build and restraint, with a melodic martian sunset payoff in the widescreen sci-fi breakdown. SUNDA, last seen on the label with his gorgeous remix of Q00Bs Suns Horses, has continued to build a reputation for producing deep soulful melodic trance. His remix here is no exception - a classy rework, that dials up the trance whilst preserving the progressive nature of the original. HALCYON is a name to watch, and weve got a stunning original of his on the way very soon, but here he twists Afterglow into a new breed techno / trance crossover, that draws heavily on the likes of LSG / Oliver Lieb. Hard and beautiful in all the right places. We love a strong bonus track here at LL towers, so rounding things off we have another JESH original: MY MIND - pushing his sound deeper into analogue-driven Techno territory.

Jesh

#15 Top Releases in DJ Tools

07.10.21 > Claires Accessories has remixed Federations Venus, pitching it up to 170bpm + DJ Hyperdrive has played it on his Boiler Room Hard Dance 121 set. I am out for a run, listening on my bone conductors. What is this? It is fast. It is raw. It is animal. It has the thrash metal / crust-punk pace of psy, but without the trite robot farts + UFO samples. There are gabber kicks + Bladerunner riffs. It is cold + it is minimal. + then it is hard + it is beautiful. I want to hug a dog walker. 11.10.22 > SIOC has remixed Otto K (LOST182), Claires Accessories has reworked Steve Jones (LOST183), + Astral Bandits oneiric psy-gaze masterpiece Different Kind of Friend(LOST185) has broken all known BPM records for a Lost Language a-side. 21.12.22 > A quiet night in sharing music over a bottle of red, some shrooms, + a fish pie - Melissa + I had a moment listening to Matriarks Virvle. I have stuck it on a 2hr mix, alongside current faves from Pro Athlete, Mikkel Rev, Mac Declos etc / recent EL-EL signings. This is THE PULSE OF A TIMELESS WAVE. 28.04.23 > Matriark is DJing at COCYX in London. It is my 43rd birthday. The venue is an old office space in Tottenham that I worked in 15 years ago. It has since been turned into a nightclub + I find myself dancing where my desk used to be. Pissing on the ghost of a photocopier. I bore everyone with this synchronicity. Matriark drops Lost Tribes Gamemaster (HOOJ081), pitched up into the high 160s. It goes off. Drunk on meaning / a heavy dose of McKenna Mushrooms (Terrence / Paul) I fall into a fugue. I feel unreal. 11.9.23 > Thanks to a campaign by Trance vet J00F, Beatport have introduced a new genre tag - RAW TRANCE, + with EL-EL sat firmly in the uncooked camp, they have asked me to submit a video talking about it. I stand in a field and blabber on about - The sound. The art. The underground. + a NEW PUNK ENERGY(TM). When things are truly exciting, it is never just about the music. 10.12.23 > Holeigh loved the EL-EL promos. Shes gonna play Factorias Darkskye remix in Paris tonight. Said it sounds wicked at 155. 12.4.24 > Loving the Afgang Remix of Racket Sports. Almost donk when it breaks. (Donk-ish? Donk-y?). With the Nordic Echoes remix of Suns Horses, thats 2 killer cuts from Denmark. 1.10.24 > Dave Moth has reworked Dominions 11hrs + weve collaborated with Ulteriors Paul McGregor as SIDE WOUND. It is a dream. Paul Speedmaster Coppings remix of Locomotion (LOST193) has just been released, + the Vergil edit of DIFFERENT KIND OF FRIEND has racked up plays from new breed heavyweights KI/KI, Hyperdrive, + Charlotte de Witte. 10.12.24 > SIOC has remixed 3 classics from our back cat. The masters sound great. Hard to pick one, but Origin (LOST001) is 100\%\% going on the next EXHIBITION. 07.02.25 > I am sat in my local trying to write a blurb for this comp. All our raw cuts on one CD length mix. As usual, it is a fucking jigsaw. The running order - a puzzle. Until you find the corners. + the edges. + then it isnt. I keep a daily record in lined red + black. Dreams, shadows, cosmic love / loathing. The last 4 years are on the table in front of me. Everything takes forever. This is that. Never not was. BL 25.

Side Wound, qoob, Dave Moth, The Mfa, Origin, Astral Bandit, Dominion, Otto K, Chris Johnson, Steve Jones, Darkskye, Natious, LostLegend, Side Wound ft Paul McGregor, Various Artists

#32 Top Releases in Trance (Main Floor)

Ukrainian deep trance hero OTTO K returns with his third EP on EL-EL, delivering two slabs of underground, forest-tinged prog, both packed with psychedelic tension and widescreen detail. Portugal 99 leads the charge with eerie top-line melodies and sharp percussion, carving out a cinematic space between progressive trance and forest psychedelia, receiving early support from Standard Form and Mr Wright on their acclaimed Sunset Sessions 2024 mix. On the flip, Isolated Island ups the energy with a driving, percussive groove, mixing brooding atmospheres with melodic restraint- a heads down tool built for long, late hours. First up on remix duties is Jake Grace, whos Meteor Shower was a much loved cut on 2024s Plymouth Brethren EP (LOST191) - and hes back here with a peak-time take on Portugal 99, stretching out the central riff into an expansive, big-room moment. Lawn Jarre, an exciting young talent from China, completes the package with 2 versions of Isolated Island. The first is a deep, hypnotic interpretation soaked in mid-90s post Goa / pre World Tour 99 era Oakey textures (think Ecano, Dream Traveller, Pink Bomb…) while a sharper, club focused mix rounds things off, dialling up the intensity whilst maintaining the hypnosis.

Otto K

#39 Top Releases in Trance (Raw / Deep / Hypnotic)

07.10.21 > Claires Accessories has remixed Federations Venus, pitching it up to 170bpm + DJ Hyperdrive has played it on his Boiler Room Hard Dance 121 set. I am out for a run, listening on my bone conductors. What is this? It is fast. It is raw. It is animal. It has the thrash metal / crust-punk pace of psy, but without the trite robot farts + UFO samples. There are gabber kicks + Bladerunner riffs. It is cold + it is minimal. + then it is hard + it is beautiful. I want to hug a dog walker. 11.10.22 > SIOC has remixed Otto K (LOST182), Claires Accessories has reworked Steve Jones (LOST183), + Astral Bandits oneiric psy-gaze masterpiece Different Kind of Friend(LOST185) has broken all known BPM records for a Lost Language a-side. 21.12.22 > A quiet night in sharing music over a bottle of red, some shrooms, + a fish pie - Melissa + I had a moment listening to Matriarks Virvle. I have stuck it on a 2hr mix, alongside current faves from Pro Athlete, Mikkel Rev, Mac Declos etc / recent EL-EL signings. This is THE PULSE OF A TIMELESS WAVE. 28.04.23 > Matriark is DJing at COCYX in London. It is my 43rd birthday. The venue is an old office space in Tottenham that I worked in 15 years ago. It has since been turned into a nightclub + I find myself dancing where my desk used to be. Pissing on the ghost of a photocopier. I bore everyone with this synchronicity. Matriark drops Lost Tribes Gamemaster (HOOJ081), pitched up into the high 160s. It goes off. Drunk on meaning / a heavy dose of McKenna Mushrooms (Terrence / Paul) I fall into a fugue. I feel unreal. 11.9.23 > Thanks to a campaign by Trance vet J00F, Beatport have introduced a new genre tag - RAW TRANCE, + with EL-EL sat firmly in the uncooked camp, they have asked me to submit a video talking about it. I stand in a field and blabber on about - The sound. The art. The underground. + a NEW PUNK ENERGY(TM). When things are truly exciting, it is never just about the music. 10.12.23 > Holeigh loved the EL-EL promos. Shes gonna play Factorias Darkskye remix in Paris tonight. Said it sounds wicked at 155. 12.4.24 > Loving the Afgang Remix of Racket Sports. Almost donk when it breaks. (Donk-ish? Donk-y?). With the Nordic Echoes remix of Suns Horses, thats 2 killer cuts from Denmark. 1.10.24 > Dave Moth has reworked Dominions 11hrs + weve collaborated with Ulteriors Paul McGregor as SIDE WOUND. It is a dream. Paul Speedmaster Coppings remix of Locomotion (LOST193) has just been released, + the Vergil edit of DIFFERENT KIND OF FRIEND has racked up plays from new breed heavyweights KI/KI, Hyperdrive, + Charlotte de Witte. 10.12.24 > SIOC has remixed 3 classics from our back cat. The masters sound great. Hard to pick one, but Origin (LOST001) is 100\%\% going on the next EXHIBITION. 07.02.25 > I am sat in my local trying to write a blurb for this comp. All our raw cuts on one CD length mix. As usual, it is a fucking jigsaw. The running order - a puzzle. Until you find the corners. + the edges. + then it isnt. I keep a daily record in lined red + black. Dreams, shadows, cosmic love / loathing. The last 4 years are on the table in front of me. Everything takes forever. This is that. Never not was. BL 25.

Side Wound, qoob, Dave Moth, The Mfa, Origin, Astral Bandit, Dominion, Otto K, Chris Johnson, Steve Jones, Darkskye, Natious, LostLegend, Side Wound ft Paul McGregor, Various Artists

#50 Feat. Staff Picks in Trance (Raw / Deep / Hypnotic)

Ukrainian deep trance hero OTTO K returns with his third EP on EL-EL, delivering two slabs of underground, forest-tinged prog, both packed with psychedelic tension and widescreen detail. Portugal 99 leads the charge with eerie top-line melodies and sharp percussion, carving out a cinematic space between progressive trance and forest psychedelia, receiving early support from Standard Form and Mr Wright on their acclaimed Sunset Sessions 2024 mix. On the flip, Isolated Island ups the energy with a driving, percussive groove, mixing brooding atmospheres with melodic restraint- a heads down tool built for long, late hours. First up on remix duties is Jake Grace, whos Meteor Shower was a much loved cut on 2024s Plymouth Brethren EP (LOST191) - and hes back here with a peak-time take on Portugal 99, stretching out the central riff into an expansive, big-room moment. Lawn Jarre, an exciting young talent from China, completes the package with 2 versions of Isolated Island. The first is a deep, hypnotic interpretation soaked in mid-90s post Goa / pre World Tour 99 era Oakey textures (think Ecano, Dream Traveller, Pink Bomb…) while a sharper, club focused mix rounds things off, dialling up the intensity whilst maintaining the hypnosis.

Otto K

#87 Feat. Staff Picks in Trance (Raw / Deep / Hypnotic)

There would be no EXHIBITION : RAW, at least not as we know it, without the spectral presence of DAVE MOTH, a name that threads itself, unassumingly yet insistently, throughout the architecture of BEN LOSTs award-winning compilation. But, as with all hauntings, the origins are displaced, nonlinear. The beginning, if such a term can even be applied, goes back to 2020; a year already thick with collapse and strange opportunity. It was MOTH who introduced LOST to Archie - who together were operating under the brief, brutish banner of HARDBODY - with Archie simultaneously farming hard trance pastures that would soon go on to bloom under the alias CLAIRES ACCESSORIES. And for LOST, it was CAs 2021 remix of Venus by FEDERATION that signalled a shift towards a tough, speed-drenched sound that circled back to what initially excited him about trance in the wild 1990s. But DAVE MOTH was never simply a producer. He emerged from the art-damaged debris of the early 2000s, co-founder of THE FILTHIEST PEOPLE ALIVE alongside GAVIN IT, a project less musical act than acid-drenched détournement, somewhere between DIVINE and SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK. From there, Peterboroughs hardcore scene swallowed him whole, going on to tour Europe with the old school / communal HHH on lead guitar. The early 2010s offered another shift / reconnection. MOTH reunited with LOST, alongside SOLARSTONE, joining aforementioned trance romos FEDERATION on guitar, just in time to cowrite and perform on their debut album F, a record saturated with the residue of rave utopias and post-punk entropy. Parallel to this, MOTH straddled space / acid / hard rock projects in RIDDLES, MAGIC MOSS, and MARSHES - the latter fronted by LOST - before taking a 180 4/4 turn in 2024 to collaborate as SIDE WOUND, whose Leftfield and Lydon after a handful of mitzis debut Tremor Dollar (with Paul McGregor of ULTERIOR) sounded like a late capitalist death disco in an abandoned Meadowhall shopping centre. Now, RACKET SPORTS (LOST194) marks DAVE MOTHs solo debut on LOST LANGUAGE: full throttle, high-speed drama, foot to the floor at 154. Haunted wails under steel city kicks and warehouse clangs, channelling the gated spirit of REACTIVATE-era chaos. Its the kind of gear LARRY THE LOBSTER mightve smuggled up his CERVICAL GROOVE in a warehouse circa 1996. FACTORIA, whose DARKSKYE remix was pitched up into the Gods by LOST on his latest EXHIBITION comp, returns with a technicolour remix that finds that sweet spot between peak-time euphoria and undercurrent tension - FSOE via AA Meeting, if you like. While Norwegian talent AFGANG, whose original RACKET SPORTS remix helped set the tone on EX: RAW, brings a club-ready dreamy donk twist alongside a darker, swampier Forest Flip version. Rounding off the package is another DAVE MOTH original CRYSTAL DAWN. A riff-heavy hard trance trip, filled with PSY-FI FX, unhinged fills, and dangerous / playful drops, a record that points backwards and forwards all at once, into raves unresolved future. Mrak E Fischer (T-Punk 25)

Dave Moth