| Dream trance | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | House, Trance |
| Cultural origins | Early 1990s, Switzerland |
| Typical instruments | Synthesizer - Sequencer - Keyboard - Sampler |
| Mainstream popularity | Large in 1995—97 Europe, United States, and Canada. |
| Derivative forms | Progressive |
| Subgenres | |
| Piano dream house, Synth dream house, Vocal dream house | |
Dream trance is the earliest subgenre of trance music that peaked prominently on the international dance scene between 1995 and 1997 (colliding with the first time for trance to reach mainstream). The "dream" term has been known to largely influence house music in general, and therefore the subgenre is also known as dream house or dream dance on some occasions.
The key element of dream trance resides in catchy and deep melodies of such tracks, typically played on an analog instrument (piano, violin, saxophone, etc.) that are mastered and then sampled onto electronic beat structure. The melodies are considered "dreamy", i.e. tending to alter the listener's mind, hence the name.
Today dream trance is considered to be the first and the most primitive derivative of progressive electronic movement that started around 1992. Many psytrance producers emergent at the time (notably Infected Mushroom) were also influenced by it.
Dream trance uses dance beats similar to those of eurodance and dance-pop genres rather than genuine trance beats mixed into a 4-to-4 bass patterns with particularly repetitive sound. The rhythm structure is also very simple, however, as stated before, all the importance is accented in instrumental strings that derive on various notes and shape the songs. Therefore, the style is very similar to trance in its general consistence, with the only differences being slower tempo (around 130 BPM) and constant, house-like progression.
The track that launched dream trance to popularity was "Children" by Robert Miles, its debut album Dreamland was also an iconic Dream trance record [1],. Among the most popular dream trance tracks were:
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