New Frontiers – Gidi Hovek Olam

Israeli trance has shifted from the full-on “victory trance” style which put it on the global trance map. Just as a lot of European artists have turned inwards reating more minimal and tecchy trance, Israel’s producers have flipped the focus from macrocosm to microcosm, but in a different way. New Frontiers demonstrates how you can go deep, stay deep, and party deep. Psycraft’s West Side is a spacey, textured number that kicks things off nicely. DJ Gidi teams up with trance darling Alien Project on Beatwins UFO, and it rocks – it really comes alive with shifting sounds, together beats and all the emotion and energy of a classic. Human Blue’s Moods is one of the deepest tunes of the lot, and it’s awesome – the perfect balance of sounds draws you right in, and you’re literally left guessing where it’ll take you. Also worthy of note is Soap Bubbles by Sesto Sento, a harder offering than most of the others but hell, it’s scary, and when it breaks into a friendly synth line your feet are stomping and you’re glad to still be alive. All these tracks are unreleased, and it’s definitely worth investigating as a snapshot of the Israeli scene as 2001 draws to a close.