- For most dance music lovers, well, for DJ Mag Top 100 voters anyway, trance is gospel – Tiesto, Van Buuren, and Van Dyk, their messiahs. But for others, (mostly, assholes like myself), the genre of trance doesn’t really cut it. Yet epic synths also have their place in other genres – electro house loves them (preferably as dirty as possible), minimal has been flirting with them recently, and prog – well, to my ears that’s always been trance anyway.
Belgium’s Pitch & Hold give a couple of examples of this trance cross-pollination on ‘Lovetrance EP (Part 2)’, their third effort on Williams’ Love Triangle label. It sees them explore much deeper territory than on part one.
Firstly, ‘Battle of Flowers’ is a cute and bleepy tech-houser, trance-like in effect, with a warm bassline that grooves steadily without venturing much beyond the main melody. On the flip ‘Maillot Juane’ (Yellow Shirt in French) is trance in house clothing, and it’s full of uplifting epic riffery which, coupled with the deep and techy bassline, seems a little overloaded and out of place. ‘Pluto’ on the other hand, is the wildcard. Its warped and tweaked notes are brutally tortured over a thumping beat – it builds into a funky, glitchy monster, devoid of anything remotely trancey. It’s easily the pick of the bunch.
Pitch & Hold have put together an interesting EP. While ‘Battle of Flowers’ and ‘Maillot Juane’ probably won’t make it beyond warm-up fodder, ‘Pluto’ is huge. It should win them some new fans and see a lot of club action in the process.
Tracklist1 Battle Of Flowers
2 Maillot Jaune
3 Pluto