illywhacker - Smokin' Aces - 2020

Before we begin!!!

The Smokin' Aces playlist is now available to follow and stream on Spotify, it'll be updated weekly with all the tunes featuring in these blog posts.

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4oV9djxq6DviiZQgroTClE?si=xHHI31N7RXSux1_pEfcTnQ

Entry number 19!

Last week's tune of the week was the mid-noughties uplifting vocal trance record 'Winter' by British producer and DJ, DT8 Project (a.k.a. Darren Tate, Jurgen Vries, Angelic, Orion and more). I first discovered Winter when I was 14 years old and in Hong Kong with my family for a Christmas holiday. It was a couple of days before New Year's Eve and we made a stop at an HMV store where I decided to buy a new dance music CD to keep me entertained whilst chilling in the hotel. I settled on Ministry of Sound's 'The Annual 2005', as I recognised a few of the artists on the tracklist, but hadn't heard the majority of the tracks before, so it seemed a purchase as good as any!

There were some quality tracks on the album, but Winter stood out as the winner in my eyes; the combination of synth melodies and chords, intertwined with the powerful vocals of Andrea Britton resulted in a rapturous production that I couldn't stop listening to. It's one of the best vocal trance tracks ever in my opinion. I'll never tire of hearing this track or the nostalgia that comes with it.

Winter forced me into the hunt for more of DT8 Project's music, which is when I found out the true identity of the person behind the name. It was only then that I discovered Darren's other monikers and that he was responsible for other, now, trance classics that I was so fond of (Jurgen Vries - The Theme, what a tune!).

I actually had the pleasure of signing a remix of mine to Darren's record label, Mondo Records back in 2010, and I hope to one-day remix Winter once I've got a few of my own illywhacker releases out there. It's definitely on my list of tracks that I'd love to remix, though I'm not sure I could improve upon the original version!

If you enjoy this record, make sure to check out more of Darren's music, not to mention the music being released by his awesome label, Mondo Records! This track also features in episode 006 of my False Promises DJ mix series.

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/M11T_Y6AHts

DT8 Project - Winter (Original Vocal Mix)