WIN PAUL OAKENFOLD'S 'TRANCE MISSION' ALBUM

Paul Oakenfold, one of the founding fathers of the modern day dance scene, has just released his latest album — a series of trance classics from back in the day, updated for 2014. And DJmag.com has five copies of this brand new opus to give away. Read on to find out how to win...

Paul was one of the UK DJs who had a dance music epiphany in Ibiza in the late eighties, and helped kick off the acid house explosion once back in the UK. As the '90s progressed, he started playing more and more trance music — when it was still an underground sound — and scooped DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs crown in 1998 and 1999.

Trance exploded into the mainstream around the Millennium, and the Top 100 DJs poll documented how it became the dominant sound in international clubbing. It's been eclipsed by EDM in recent times, but trance is now the more discerning, underground big room choice.

Paul's new 'Trance Mission' album updates classics like Energy 52 'Cafe Del Mar', 'Barber's Adagio For Strings' (below), Fragma's 'Toca Me', 'Not Over Yet' by Grace and lots more. With solid 2014 production values, the tracks are sequenced into one another — making for a boshing, journeying mix that tingles synapses in the old grey matter and gets those toes a-tapping. 

Paul tells DJ Mag why he wanted to update some trance classics for the smaller gigs he was doing.

“The whole idea was to play just trance, but it wasn't a retro set, it was just playing young and fresh trance,” Paul says. “People kept coming up and saying, 'Could you play that track that you used to play then?' And I'd go, 'No, no, no, I'm not gonna play that'.

“Then I thought, 'If I take some of those classics from 15 years ago that were big for me, and re-do them with a 2014 production sound' — so that's what I started to do, and I started to play them on the tour. And I'm educating a lot of people who hadn't heard those tracks from back in the day.”

Paul accepts that EDM and now also deep house have pushed trance off the main stage in the last couple of years. But that trance may well come back, with those tiring of EDM's saccharine edge starting to look a little deeper into big room music. “It's going to be very interesting to see,” he says.

'Trance Mission' is out on Perfecto, and precedes his third artist album 'Pop Killer'. To win one of five copies of 'Trance Mission', just answer this simple question:

Q. Which football team does Paul Oakenfold support?

Answers to [email protected], putting 'Oakey comp' in the subject header, plus your name and address — and, of course, the correct answer. Closing date: 25^th June.