Back in the days... (The Clubber's Guide To Trance: Mixed By Atb - ATB)

Name: Tcraze84

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Product:	The Clubber's Guide To Trance: Mixed By Atb - ATB
Date:	25/01/01 (342 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great tunes, good mixing, nice sequencing.

Disadvantages: Shame the "Clubber's Guide"s have gone down in quality.

Believe it or not, there was once a time where the Ministry Of Sound's "Clubber's Guide To.." series was actually quite good.

Rather than the more recent outings of "2000", "2001", and the "UK Garage" edition; back in the glorious summer of 1999, and still now to a certain degree, this was actually considered pretty good.

Although capitalising on the big-name draw that was ATB, after his number one chart hit "9pm..", he actually does a pretty good job, and rather than looking like every other "Ibiza"/"Trance" compilation around the time, this may have put some people off with it's lack of commercial appeal, rather than fill it with poorly mixed tunes that we'd only heard a million times before on every other CD.

I actually only got this mid-way through last year and it still really appealed to me just as much as before.

It's quite refreshing to see a compilation like this; which does include some true trance music rather than pop/trance crossovers and the like. Not saying there's anything wrong with that type of music, but essentially (obviously, even) this is purely meant to be a trance mix.

CD One however, does kick off with some bigger name tunes to attract some mainstream buyers; but credible tunes that fit this requirement (Agnelli & Nelson, Matt Darey, System F, etc) don't do any harm at all - some of these are classics anyway, so must really be put on a "guide" to this genre of music.

The 1999 Perfecto working of Grace's 1995 hit "Not Over Yet" would certainly not be regarded as a conventional way to open a set, but this does the job well enough, and leads us through a choice few more well-known tunes, such as "Red Sun Rising", "Liberation" and "Out Of The Blue".

But then things get all a bit deeper, more progressive on us and great atmospheric tu
nes such as the reworking of "Dimension" and Vimana's superb "We Came" lead the listener into an almighty climax with N-Fluence and Imajica rounding things off nicely, leaving us anticipating CD2.

Again, the CD begins with some more commercial-type tunes, "Saltwater", "Gouryella" etc, but these are classics anyway, and regardless, as the mix kicks off with the haunting "Finished Symphony", you soon realise that this won't be a chart-fest of well-known tunes. The excellent original version of "Gouryella" begins the proceeding, as in CD One, for a deeper, darker, prog-type voyage and tunes such as the speedy Tall Paul mix of "Lizard" and the mesmerising full vocal mix of Lange's "I Believe" merge (again) into an epic set-ending with the classic, almost anthemic "Carte Blanche"'s spine-tingling synths ending things perfectly.

Sure, trance may have moved on from the days of 1999, and indeed these weren't all the essential tunes that started the trance scene in a big way, but this, for a trance fan, or for somebody looking for a decent beginning album, this is recommended.

Summary: