Turn-of-the-Century Rave Music

Is euphoric hard trance a precursor to modern techno??

I first discovered Oli Freke’s music from a DJ set played by Akiko Iwahara. When I asked her what the lead-off track in the set was, and she told me (“Radium”), I had to look that up. The crisp edginess and rave-style energy really struck me.

When I finally found it, and listened to it all the way though, I was really like “wow,” and when I saw that that track had originally been released in 2003, I was pretty damn impressed. It still sounds fresh and cutting-edge today.

 
Oli Freke – Radium (Lee Haslam Remix – Mix Cut) · Resonate 11

 
 
CONTACT ASSIST – 2000

 
 
CONTACT ASSIST – FUTURESCOPE
“Released in 1999 or thereabouts on Fevah Records”

 
 
Live Set – 2024

This is a live performance of my current techno/electronic set, performed in one take. Mostly blending stems, live riffs from the Roland SH-101 and Moog Prodigy, and plenty of loop manipulation in Ableton.

 
After listening to more of this music, I started to really wonder if the hard trance, or euphoric hard trance style, wasn’t a major influence on modern techno. If you think about styles such as “tech trance” too, for example (which seems to have become increasingly popular recently), I think you can see this “evolutionary influence” as well :-).

 
 
OLI FREKE BIO

Oli Freke is a musician living in SE London now intent on pumping out – and playing out – The Technos.

He is also the author of Synth Evolution – a hand-illustrated definitive directory of all the synths made between 1963 and 1995, as well as purveyor of history of synth posters: www.synthevolution.net

Previous musical escapades include supporting the Human League on tour with his electro band ‘Cassette Electrik’, writing channel ident music for Channel 5 which ran for five years, playing drums at Glastonbury festival, and has played live techno PAs in clubs such as Heaven, Brixton Academy, and much more besides that.

OLI FREKE LINKS
If you’re a synth head, you gotta check out Oli’s blog at “Synth Evolution.”
https://www.synthevolution.net/blog

https://soundcloud.com/olifreke
https://velocitypress.uk/authors/oli-freke/
https://360degreesound.com/author-talk-oli-freke-on-synthesizer-evolution/
https://www.soundonsound.com/news/synthesizer-evolution-zines-oli-freke
https://www.youtube.com/c/OliFreke