Downtempo, and in particular slow trance, has been a recent interest of mine. I have been digging through the genre with the help of my mate Boyan, the amazing (human?) entity whomst composed the amazing visuals for our ethereal spaces ambient escape. He has always had affinities with trance, mostly through psytrance. In Amsterdam, the trance scene is the current-times hippie scene, mostly represented by the bewitching place that is Ruigoord; a field with a dozen houses and a church, who like the Gallic village of Asterix resisted capitalism and remains immaculate, standing like a fort in the middle of the industrial port of Amsterdam. Its die hard community makes money through countless music-related events, including (but not limited to) psytrance parties in the church on saturday evenings.

Parties in Ruigoord are always special, and one thing that makes it special, if not the music itself, is the audience. Truly kind and selfless; always entertaining a hefty bonfire outside, offering tea in a hut draped with trippy patterns. Most parties I have had there were with fast paced, psytrance, or forest as they call them these days. Yet with Boyan we were having fun rediscovering trance artists from the end of the 90’s / early 2000’s who were producing slow paced, almost ambient pieces. We had a good laugh at the aliases of these artists, with names like Transwave or Astral Projection.

Neuromantic Trance - She Is Golden (Zlato) (1997)

My pick of today is a track Boyan recently shared with me, a very special track, “She is Golden” produced by Neuromantic Trance. Unlike most of the slow trance tracks I have gathered until now; this one is definitely a sorrowful take on the genre, a truly melancholic ballad. The beautiful voice of a Bulgarian woman sings about a golden maid, her first love, who she longs to meet again… a slow acid slowly fades in, panning left to right until a slow kick comes in. The kick itself is a work of art, with this subtle stumble every 16 beats, making an otherwise downtempo track trancey sounding. The remainder of the track is an ecstasy of echoey pads and panning synths…

I hope one day to be able to play in Ruigoord… either an after hour or a second stage set, outside near a chill area, and play some slow beats for people to warm their souls to. One day, maybe, until then… I hope you enjoy the track and that life is kind with you.

PS: if I recall correctly, Boyan found this track when going through the amazing work of an All We Need Is Acid top artist, me_diafan. Checkout his Ybyzär series for more trance and other weird sounds!