THROWBACK THURSDAY: D-Shake – Techno Trance (Paradise Is Now) [1990]

Some grooves are just timeless. Despite being thirty years old this year, Techno Trance (Paradise Is Now) by D-Shake, aka Dutch producer Aad de Mooy, sounds as fresh as anything released today – with the machine gun percussion and devastating synth riff still capable of lifting the roof off any dancefloor.

I was reminded of this track earlier this week by a friend (who pointed out its inclusion in the Homelands Ireland 1999 documentary, which can be viewed here), and felt obliged to feature it in this week’s Throwback Thursday as a result.

Released on Go Bang! Records – which was also home to artists such as G.T.O., Quazar and House of Venus – the track was actually a B-side (with Yaah on the flip), but regular plays from the DJ collective of the time, including a young Carl Cox, earned it global prominence.

While within a few years, the Netherlands had become a bastion for hard-edged electronic music, back in 1990 it was still finding its feet, and thus de Mooy was something of a pioneer at the time – some versions of the release even came stamped with a proud ‘Made in Holland’ badge.

de Mooy would go on to adopt a myriad of monikers in the years to come, including Cat Scanner, House Of Nachos, Nu-Tro-Gen, Paradise 3001 and Zoeysonic, but he would later become better known as ‘lounge house’ maestro Alex Cortiz towards the end of the 90s.

He was also behind a number of video clips, for artists including Kraze and Todd Terry, which were regularly seen on MTV.

But for us, it’s his alluring 1990 warehouse classic that we always return to. Reach for the lasers! 🙂