Church of Trance

“ Always, I have believed that artist albums need a purpose ” says Johan Gielen , “ and that purpose can’t simply be feeding the industry machine or the bi-annual expectations of a fanbase ”. Nonetheless, it’s been nigh on twenty years since ‘Revelations’ appeared, making ‘ Etherflow ’ less of a ‘return’ to the Johan Gielen longplayer, and more a musical reckoning for it. Fair to say then that expectations have been raised, and its taken the Belgium-born/Dutch-based legend three earth cycles of production to meet them. An album forged in grief, resilience, and a raw creative truth, ‘ Etherflow ’ isn’t just a long-awaited ‘next chapter’ . It’s part an epic celebration of life, and part an existential excavation of it - one that’s been written from the inside out and charged by the weight of lived experience. As Johan himself puts it: “ there’s the Beauty of Silence, but also ‘the beauty of absence” . ‘ Etherflow ’ though, is where that absence ends. What’s in a title then? Joh...

So here we are … and here it is. 25 years after the first took the mix comp scene by storm and set a new high bar in the process, we’ve arrived at  the twentieth ‘In Search Of Sunrise’ . For a landmark occasion this momentous, an exceptional edition was required, and with a six-mix/disc/DJ odyssey, that’s exactly what series guardians Black Hole Recordings have delivered. Before all that though, a little history! With the millennium on the then horizon, October the 10 th  1999 saw DJ  Tiësto’s  first ‘In Search Of Sunrise’ touch down into a glowing comp climate. Already trailing heat through his previous series ( ‘Magik’ ), anticipation was way high. However, its reception outmatched even Tiësto and Black Hole’s expectations, with the Dutchman mixing seven in total, before parting creative ways with the series. ISOS returned in 2010 under the stewardship of one-time Tiësto protegee  Richard Durand , who delivered six editions and introduced co-mixing to its...