So, my music tastes in the electronica genre began with Orbital’s Halcyon & On & On. This feels like a very long time ago, but although I loved the song from the start (back in ‘95), I still hadn’t started to listen to electronica until much later. Around 1999, I started looking specifically for electronica and other similar styles of music. Having never really been around any other people that cared for this music, I was pretty much on my own in my search. So, where do you look when you don’t know what you are looking for? P2P was the answer in the form of Napster, Gnutella, Bear Share, Audiogalaxy, IRC, and the like. I found that searching for “trance”, “rave”, “electronica”, and “house” did the job.

Through this searching I came across some great artists, such as Robert Miles (whom I had heard about before due to “Children”), Mike Oldfield, Paul Oakenfold, Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, Taucher, and of course, Orbital. Songs that stood-out outside of these artists included Sandstorm (Darude), Better Off Alone (Alice DeeJay), Offshore (Chicane), and Castles in the Sky (Ian Van Dahl - this song came a little later than 1999. I believe around 2001).

Now, I am a geek by nature. I have always been fascinated with technology, the new electronics that come out, computers, video games, big sound systems, big video systems, etc, etc. If an electric current runs through it, I am interested in it. At this initial trance point in my life, there were many people that related the two, thinking I liked this style of music because it fit with my interest in all things technological. Initially, I had to agree with them. This made sense to me, but I later discovered it was more that this. There was something about the electronica sound that kept me hanging on to it.