Hard Trance is a subgenre of Trance music that originated in Western Europe (Belgium, Germany, and Netherlands) in the mid-1990s as the breakbeat Hardcore production community began to diversify into new and different styles of electronic music, all influenced by UK hard house, Happy Hardcore and jungle/drum & bass. The popularity of Hard Trance peaked during the late 1990s, and has since then faded in scope of newer forms of Trance.
Hard Trance is often characterized by strong, hard (or even downpitch) kicks, fully resonant basses and an increased amount of reverberation applied to the main beat. Melody varies from 130 to 150 in tempo, and can feature plain instrumental sound in early compositions, with the latter ones tending to implement side-chaining techniques of Progressive on digital synthesizers.
Hard Trance was the final form of Progressive to hit the mainstream. It eventually morphed into Jumpstyle/Hardstyle and completely pushed out of popularity around 2007.
Famous quotes containing the words hard and/or trance:
“A man’s social and spiritual discipline must answer to his corporeal. He must lean on a friend who has a hard breast, as he would lie on a hard bed. He must drink cold water for his only beverage. So he must not hear sweetened and colored words, but pure and refreshing truths. He must daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympathy of friends.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“My trance frightens them,
breaks the dance,
empties the market-place;
if I but pass they fall
back, frantically.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)