Celestial Dreams

Side 1 of a mixtape labelled "The Best Of Trance Europe Express" and compiled sometime in 1998.

Trance Europe Express was an off-shoot of the Volume book/magazine/CD series, focusing on (as you may have guessed from the title) electronic music. Trance Europe Express released five 2CD volumes between 1993 and 1997, a total of 120 tracks, most of which were songs or versions unique to the series.

 

The handwritten title on the mixtape is intentionally misleading: this 13-track cassette couldn't hope to be a "best of", as the quality throughout the five volumes remained incredibly high. However, the selected tracks are a good representation of the series as a whole.

Scubadevils was a one-off collaboration between David Holmes and Dub Federation aka Andy Ellison and Pete Latham. A different mix of Celestial Symphony popped up on a split single released in 1993 and will eventually pop up here on an archive David Holmes mixtape. The original mix featured here pips it as the superior version.

 

German duo Resistance D aka Maik Maurice and Pascal Dardoufas had been performing live since 1990, releasing a number of singles and EPs, culminating in second and final album, A Modern World Of Today, in 2001. Pascal sadly passed in May 2020.

 

Zeno Messis and Laggy Pantell released 7 singles and an album as Megalon between 1993 and 1997. Pantell subsequently recorded as Underground Science and Hijacker, although I can't find any further releases after 2018. I've found that Messis has released a steady stream of music as zedmeco, the most recent being May 2022's album, The Pentland Hills, inspired by a move to Scotland. This and other releases are available on Bandcamp and, on a brief listen so far, it's worth further investigation.

Glamorous Hooligan have appeared here previously, in July 2021, as part of a "hip-hop/rap/dancefloor sample-heavy mish-mash" mix CD. This is a slightly different beast, but the influences are still clear. Glamorous Hooligan apparently took their name from the members’ past experiences "running with a local football firm". Being Bradford-based, Google bets are on either The Ointment or Bradford Section Five. Presumably part of the glamour is proudly wearing your lapel badge, available for a tenner on Etsy. And no, I'm not going to provide a link.

 

Bytesize Nuns were an electronic super group, comprising Alex Paterson, Andy Hughes, Nick Burton, Simon Phillips (numerous projects but essentially all The Orb at that time) with Kris Needs (music journo in excelsis and prolific remixer and recording artist as Secret Knowledge and Delta Lady). As far as I can tell, Codpiece was their only release as Bytesize Nuns and exclusive to Trance Europe Express 4.

 

Salt Tank were a particular favourite, a duo of David Gates & Malcolm Stanners. One of my very first - if not the first - online purchases in August 2000 was Head Straight For The Salt Tank Mix, a CD-R compilation of "Salt Tank Remixing Trax" limited to 50 copies, produced & sold through the official Salt Tank website. A copy is currently going on Discogs for £120.00, not including P&P. It's good, but not worth that much, as most of the tracks are available in other formats and probably for a lot less. There's a great, unreleased mix of Lush by Orbital that may feature here in a future selection. Dreams was the Salt Tank track that started it all for me and a solid end to this side of the mixtape.

 

1) Celestial Symphony (Original Mix By David Holmes & Dub Federation): Scubadevils (1993)

2) Unknown: Resistance D (1995)

3) Symbols: Megalon (1994)

4) Breakin' Knees (Revenge Of The 23 Stone Bodypopper): Glamorous Hooligan (1997)

5) Codpiece (Trouser Torpedo Mix): Bytesize Nuns (1995)

6) Dreams: Salt Tank (1994)

 

1993: Trance Europe Express: 1

1994: Trance Europe Express²: 3, 6

1995: Trance Europe Express 3: 2 

1995: Trance Europe Express 4: 5

1997: Trance Europe Express 5: 4

Side One (46:08) (KF) (Mega)