"Trance music" is not a new phenomenon.  The ability for music to drive dancers into ecstatic frenzies has been known at least since Euripides.  The Shakers got their name from the ecstatic behavior they exhibited when dancing to their simple, repetitive hymns.  Voodoo rituals are built around complex, trance-inducing rhythms.  It was well known that trance-dancing can produce ecstastic states, but until the later part of the 20th century, and the invention of the 'extended dance remix', it was rare for commercial music to reach for it. [more inside]
posted by empath on Feb 1, 2010 - 86 comments

In the waning days of the Disco era, Larry Levan crafted a new style of dance music, which, like House music in Chicago, came to be named after the nightclub where it was most played, the Paradise Garage. Garage music may have started with disco, but over the decades, it's evolved in some surprising ways: [more inside]
posted by empath on Oct 27, 2009 - 62 comments

A massive collection of live DJ and PA sets of electronic music sorted by year and genre. Enjoy.
(Coral Cache link. Please use this to help archive and propagate the files.)
posted by loquacious on Dec 31, 2006 - 15 comments

WaxDJ.com - an excellent source for free downloads and streams of original electronic music mixes of all sorts, from seasoned pros to beginning bedroom amatuers, all told numbering in the hundreds or thousands. My current brand new favorite is the very diverse and well-versed Detriot/Chicago techno stylings of DJ Rubsilent. Recomended mix: Future Funk 23: (Direct MP3 link) (Streaming mp3 link) But don't let me divert you - search for your favorite local DJ or browse for new ones.
posted by loquacious on Oct 11, 2006 - 19 comments