.: yukun :.

Many have asked why throughout my career as a DJ, I've refused to play a number of tunes, regardless if they were played by everyone else or they were the biggest hits in the world or whether it's played on any of those commercialized Trance shows (i.e. ASOT & TATW). I'm musically-trained (piano), so I tend to be very picky with the tunes I put into my playlist. There's a lot of things I consider... i.e. structure, melody, vocal content (if any), proper chord progressions and etc. And if it sounds like something I can personally cook up, given some decent studio time, then it's something I'd not play. So stuff that you do hear me dish out are the tunes that caught my attention from many angles.

Take the latest Dash Berlin single ("Waiting" for example. When I received the album promo, beside already-known singles... album cut stood up for me. Arguably, the synth riffs are quite over-used... but the lyrical direction of female melancholy brought back the original concept of early-Trance.

Within a span of weeks after the promo was circulated, the buzz word amongst the tastemakers was that Dash Berlin brought back memories of days gone by and that "Waiting" should be made as a single... and it soon found it's way into the playlists of many.

It's always easier to write a non-vocal track because you need not bother yourself with the discipline of verse / bridge / chorus construction. More ever, it's always harder to write a song. And the secret behind every great vocal electronic track? It's the SONG itself. Strip away the walls of sound... leave the vocals naked with minimal instrumentation... and if it stands out acoustically, then it's a gem of genuine song writing...

And true to that understanding and belief, the acoustic version of "Waiting" showcases the fragility of the lyrics without the barrage of distracting technology. I'm blown away eac time I watch this. And to be honest, the last time a vocal Trance track that actually gave me goosebumps was many years ago... BT's "Remember". That shows how many before this were so disposable despite being championed by the "big league" DJs.