Perl River is for many a definitive trance track. As with most things though, definition (or rather social labelling) holds greater sway than any specific characteristics. How we think about the world is always holds more sway than the objective reality of the world.
The period betwen 1998-2001, plus or minus a few years, is commonly regarded as the ‘golden age of trance’. In 1999 Pearl River smashed out across dance floors across the globe. DJs smoothly mixed the track into countless double CD compilations following on from its clubland fortunes. This late 90s success earmarked it as genre framing classic trance and I distinctly remember it featuring in a Gatecrasher New Years Eve Classics night in the mid 2000s.
In truth, 1999 was Pearl River’s second outing. Originally hitting dance floors in 1996 with a release in 1997, it shares status with other ‘classic-trance-from-99’ tunes which weren’t actually from 1999 at all; Paul Van Dyk’s For An Angel probably being the foremost example.
Like the archaeologist who digs up an Iron Age broach which has evidently been made in the Bronze age, we have to ask, what’s at play here? Why did some Trance fall short in the mid-90s only to explode in the late-90s?
Explanation can be found by examining the socio-economic historical context of Pearl River’s first outing. In 1996 clubland was a very different place. The euphoria from the days of acid house had all but been completely extinguished by the crackdown on race culture codified into law by 1994’s Criminal Justice Act.
As "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats" were being slowly and uncertainly appropriated by a fledgling club culture, the ravers used to hurtling round the M25 of a weekend looking for tips on the next illegal party didn’t feel comfortable enough just yet to abandon the free cultural moral high-ground and head into the arms of the capitalists - however clean the toilets and good the weather was indoors.
It would take a youth culture in the UK who were happy to embrace the benefits of high capitalism’s cultural product, of cultural consumption choices used to create post-modern musical identity, clubbing brands rather than simple clubs and record labels as websites, T-Shirts, video streams and web radio for a dance music to really grow.
In 1996 and 1997 things were beginning to bubble. The queues outside house and techno clubs were getting longer and someone walking around town in a Ministry of Sound T-Shirt didn’t look out of place. The formula of the golden era of trance had yet to be agreed upon, but the key musical characteristics were being experimented with. Breakdowns were getting longer, snare rolls louder, saws were making wider leads and Dutch DJs seemed to be talked about more and more.
The kids who were too young to have embraced Acid House were thinking about electronic music and clubbing in an increasingly positive light. Thinking they could get the best out of capitalism without any of the cost they started getting sucked in. It isn’t without irony that many from this cohort were the first and loudest to proclaim in the early 2000s that the trance bubble had burst, that the brands had become too commercial and the music had become a boring and formulaic only driven by hype. Followers of Techno on the other hand, a much more subversive, anti-mainstream and possible even politically aware genre, just looked on with a smug smile, saying quietly ‘I told you this would happen’.
So, in 1996 and 1997, people just weren't ready for Pearl River. Only by 1999, when the commercial apparatus of Trance as a clubbing brand, a cultural identity marker and symbol of post-post-Modernity was ready did it have the success it finally won. This odd artifact in the social memory of Trance is worth thinking about as it throws up some very interesting questions about aesthetic origin and of course the normative account of the genre’s history...not bad for something you mum probably owns on her digitally mixed ‘WORLD’S BEST MEGA-TRANCE HITS’ triple compilation.
Johnny Shaker - Pearl River (Instrumental) by dcp84
Johnny Shaker – Pearl River (Instrumental)
[Low Sense : 12SENSE24]
(1999)
Discogs: £4.70
The period betwen 1998-2001, plus or minus a few years, is commonly regarded as the ‘golden age of trance’. In 1999 Pearl River smashed out across dance floors across the globe. DJs smoothly mixed the track into countless double CD compilations following on from its clubland fortunes. This late 90s success earmarked it as genre framing classic trance and I distinctly remember it featuring in a Gatecrasher New Years Eve Classics night in the mid 2000s.
In truth, 1999 was Pearl River’s second outing. Originally hitting dance floors in 1996 with a release in 1997, it shares status with other ‘classic-trance-from-99’ tunes which weren’t actually from 1999 at all; Paul Van Dyk’s For An Angel probably being the foremost example.
Like the archaeologist who digs up an Iron Age broach which has evidently been made in the Bronze age, we have to ask, what’s at play here? Why did some Trance fall short in the mid-90s only to explode in the late-90s?
Explanation can be found by examining the socio-economic historical context of Pearl River’s first outing. In 1996 clubland was a very different place. The euphoria from the days of acid house had all but been completely extinguished by the crackdown on race culture codified into law by 1994’s Criminal Justice Act.
As "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats" were being slowly and uncertainly appropriated by a fledgling club culture, the ravers used to hurtling round the M25 of a weekend looking for tips on the next illegal party didn’t feel comfortable enough just yet to abandon the free cultural moral high-ground and head into the arms of the capitalists - however clean the toilets and good the weather was indoors.
It would take a youth culture in the UK who were happy to embrace the benefits of high capitalism’s cultural product, of cultural consumption choices used to create post-modern musical identity, clubbing brands rather than simple clubs and record labels as websites, T-Shirts, video streams and web radio for a dance music to really grow.
In 1996 and 1997 things were beginning to bubble. The queues outside house and techno clubs were getting longer and someone walking around town in a Ministry of Sound T-Shirt didn’t look out of place. The formula of the golden era of trance had yet to be agreed upon, but the key musical characteristics were being experimented with. Breakdowns were getting longer, snare rolls louder, saws were making wider leads and Dutch DJs seemed to be talked about more and more.
The kids who were too young to have embraced Acid House were thinking about electronic music and clubbing in an increasingly positive light. Thinking they could get the best out of capitalism without any of the cost they started getting sucked in. It isn’t without irony that many from this cohort were the first and loudest to proclaim in the early 2000s that the trance bubble had burst, that the brands had become too commercial and the music had become a boring and formulaic only driven by hype. Followers of Techno on the other hand, a much more subversive, anti-mainstream and possible even politically aware genre, just looked on with a smug smile, saying quietly ‘I told you this would happen’.
So, in 1996 and 1997, people just weren't ready for Pearl River. Only by 1999, when the commercial apparatus of Trance as a clubbing brand, a cultural identity marker and symbol of post-post-Modernity was ready did it have the success it finally won. This odd artifact in the social memory of Trance is worth thinking about as it throws up some very interesting questions about aesthetic origin and of course the normative account of the genre’s history...not bad for something you mum probably owns on her digitally mixed ‘WORLD’S BEST MEGA-TRANCE HITS’ triple compilation.
Johnny Shaker - Pearl River (Instrumental) by dcp84
Johnny Shaker – Pearl River (Instrumental)
[Low Sense : 12SENSE24]
(1999)
Discogs: £4.70
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