The best ones in my opinion are: 1. Steve Lawler 2. Tiesto 3. MV (Martin Villenueve) 4. BT 5. Paul Oakenfold (older less commercial material) 6. ATB
All of the above are good DJs, BUT. Myself I'm more into the Prog scene - so must mention a few names: Danny Howells, Satoshi Tomiie, Sander Kleinenberg, Lee Burridge, Brandon Block are all good. As far as other DJs go, I've seen Carl Cox who kicked arse, and Seb Fontaine - who wasn't great. I've also got a lot of time for DJ EZ. Whatever you may think of UK Garage - the skill involved in mixing it is considerable - and his inimmitable cut-up style really is the dogs bollocks.
Lawlers good, but Tiesto is the man Lots of Oakies new stuff is good too, I just hate Stary Eyed Surprise 1. Tiesto 2. Armin Van Buren 3. Paul van Dyk 4. Ferry Corsten 5. John Digweed 6. Sasha 7. Carl Cox 8. Deep Dish 9. Steve lawler 10. Christopher Lawerence
Prog is OK, but a lotta it seems kinda too much like classical electronica to me. Your right about Seb Fontaine, hes aight, but hes really overrated, it all sounds really repetitive.
Well the thing about Prog is it's deeper and subtler. A Trance set can get a bit tedious unless the DJ is very good as it will be climax after climax after climax, and some DJs pad out their sets with a lot of that awful unimagintive scheidt taht sounds almost like Hard house. Also to me Trance has to follow certain rules. You've got to have a lot of interesting sounds - it has to be all about the spectral evolution that's timed just right to suit the phrasing of the music. And the harmony has to be organised in the classical sense - no parallel fifths or anything that would spoil the spine-chilling effect of it all. Trance is incredibly difficult to do well and as a result there's a lot of really shit trance out there.
I couldn't agree more, trance is hard to do well, like I was saying about Fontaine, it can be pretty repetitive, but not if its done right, I hate it when people say that all DJ's are repetitive, and I just feel like yelling "no!!" even if there keeping up the usual 4/4 beat, there are so many deep layers in good trance. There is a whole lotta shit trance out there. I'll check out some of those progressive guys you mentioned, maybe I just need to expand my prog circle, I've been trying to check out more ambient stuff too, makes me feel all warm sleepy.
baaaah i forgot to mention kleinenberg n tomieeee i love them. yoshitoshi is good too. i forgot i love Sasha and Underworld too!!!!
Fun, all the greatest DJ's are from the Netherlands, like Tiesto, Paul van Dyk, Armin van Buren, Timo Maas etc.
I recognise the name Tilt - Angry Skies anyone? Actually I think my favourite Trance track has to be See Me Here by Orion - I'm aware of a number of outfits called Orion - one that did a Techno remix of Star Trek: The Next Generation samples, also featuring a Stephen Hawking style synthesised speech, don't think it's the same Orion - but I don't actually know of any other tracks by the Orion that did See Me Here - which is truly excellent as far as I'm concerned.
the first song on Steve Lawler's Live at Ministryof Sound(01/04/2002) set is awesome. its this beautiful remix of the American Beauty theme song. good stuff! check it out.
Amazing what a good remix can do for a terrible track. Who's that song Rapture by - anyway - the original is shit, and yet the Armin van Buuren mix is superb!
