Persia - Art of Trance Tribute
by Horus
PERSIA — Art of Trance Tribute
The third one. A time machine.
Recorded on the 27th of May, just after the hottest couple of May days I can remember. It's been a constructive month — outdoor instructing has been steady, and I've been digging deeper into working with AI, finding a voice in that. The mix carries some of that energy.
The brief was simple. An hour in the Floating Bong style — peak time, no warm-up, straight into it. Six Art of Trance tracks as the spine, four vibe-matches from the same Platipus and Harthouse era. Artemesia, Der Dritte Raum, Spray, Laurent Garnier — all sitting in the same room as Art of Trance did at the time. The original Floating Bong nights in Bradford in the 90s ran on this exact territory, three floors if you were lucky, and the main dancefloor lived between 130 and 140 BPM all night.
Persia opens. Then Hale Bopp by Der Dritte Raum — same year, same scene, German trance sitting right alongside the British. Killamanjaro brings it back home to the Art of Trance key.
The middle section is what I was most curious about. Moroccan Roll lifts the BPM, and the journey into it works nicely. Then Octopus twice — the 3 Of Life and Domestic remix straight into the original. Octopus was always one of those tracks at Floating Bong, an absolute barnstormer on the dancefloor every time it dropped. Mixing the remix into the original gave it an extra layer of texture I wouldn't have thought to do back in the day. Wish I had. That double Octopus is the heart of the set.
Cambodia into Bits + Pieces was the one I wasn't sure about. Technically clean — same BPM range, one step on the Camelot — but the mood gap was bigger than the numbers suggested. Cambodia is the atmospheric Clanger sweep; Bits + Pieces is acid bounce. I let Cambodia run all the way through before letting the Bits + Pieces bassline kick in, rather than trying to fade through the feeling shift. Sometimes you let one track finish what it's saying before the next one starts.
Ratenplan after Bits + Pieces locked in for the close, and Garnier brings it home. The Man With The Red Face is one of those tracks that holds a room without needing to do anything.
Fifty-six minutes start to finish. 134 to 140 to 132 BPM. Eb to Bb to Eb to Gb to F to F to C to Gb to F to Bb — the closer in the same key as track two, the set comes home.
For anyone who was ever in a room when Persia dropped, this is for you.
Trance · 90s Heritage · Platipus · Floating Bong · 132–140 BPM
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