James Holden - Horizons [2000]

Artist(s)
James Holden
Release title
Horizons
Label name
Silver Planet Recordings
Release year
2000

dmgtz96

Elite Member
Jul 13, 2020
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James Holden's breakthrough track. It's crazy to think he made this using free software while he was a mathematics student at Oxford.
Like much of his early work, Horizons is a darker 140 BPM banger.

 

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Gagi
TranceFix Crew
Jun 27, 2020
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I did not know that! Such a great track.
 

dmgtz96

Elite Member
Jul 13, 2020
2,640 Posts
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why it's darker lol? it's one of the more brighter holden tracks. i like one for you more.
Compared to the rest of the anthem trance hits (Airwave, Out of the Blue, etc.) Horizons is pretty dark indeed. His later work is darker, but it's not as fast-paced.

I did not know that! Such a great track.

Yep, he's probably one of the most academic DJs out there. I think his closest match is Shiftee, who also studied mathematics but at Harvard. Both have had pretty unique DJ careers.
 
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dmgtz96

Elite Member
Jul 13, 2020
2,640 Posts
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Btw,that video is pitched up - he didnt release them 140bpm - and they sound better slower.

Trance Classics upload:


I think the so-called original mix is pitched down. Personally, I prefer the energy from the faster-paced version, but the slower bpm does fit better with the style of the track. Holden probably noticed that and produced his future work at lower BPMs.
 
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Manofearth

Senior Member
Sep 24, 2020
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James Holden was a masterclass act. Did he stop making music all together? Too talented to abandon music
 

dmgtz96

Elite Member
Jul 13, 2020
2,640 Posts
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James Holden was a masterclass act. Did he stop making music all together? Too talented to abandon music
According to Discogs he's been active, but he quit trance early on. He shifted to the "Border Community techno" in the early 2000s and then produced really weird stuff for his 2006 album The Idiots Are Winning. Then, I think he had a hiatus until he came back with Triangle Folds in 2010 and several single releases in 2013 plus his album The Inheritors, which is more like IDM/experimental. Since then he's been doing other experimental stuff, like his 2017 album The Animal Spirits. Finally, he wrote the OST for a British documentary.
I would say that Holden, much like Andy Blueman, is taking his talents to movie OSTs. That's probably the best outcome for someone with his ambitions.
 

KrissO

New Member
Jul 21, 2020
19 Posts
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Trance Classics upload:


I think the so-called original mix is pitched down. Personally, I prefer the energy from the faster-paced version, but the slower bpm does fit better with the style of the track. Holden probably noticed that and produced his future work at lower BPMs.

Why is that YouTube rip so slow? The ones I have are 140 BPM
 

TwinSilo

Senior Member
Feb 24, 2021
349 Posts
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USA
Awesome track. Nothing really dark about it, it's more like the opposite. Holden had the midas touch.

*edit - the wow remix great too
 
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Progrez

Elite Member
Jun 17, 2022
1,696 Posts
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I did not know that! Such a great track.

I wrote this on my mate’s computer in his room at university [because] didn’t have a computer. When he’d go to the bar, I’d go up and do a couple hours, bashing away on this free software and headphones. At that point, I didn’t know anything about the scene or the music around it. I wrote it in 1998 but it was the old days, there was no internet. I was trying to find all the music I could, but I had a late start due to quite an isolated childhood.

“Really what I liked was ’70s, ’80s metal when I was a teenager, but my school had an Atari and a Roland keyboard and you could kinda write music on that. I’d do some stuff like that. The music teacher knew one of the teachers at the school, my physics teacher, was into electronic music and would go out to raves, so he put us in touch. He just handed me tapes every morning — Orbital, the Trance Europe Express compilation, that kind of stuff.”



Great track I only heard this track now.
 

Redrot

Senior Member
Jan 11, 2022
404 Posts
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Northern California
According to Discogs he's been active, but he quit trance early on. He shifted to the "Border Community techno" in the early 2000s and then produced really weird stuff for his 2006 album The Idiots Are Winning. Then, I think he had a hiatus until he came back with Triangle Folds in 2010 and several single releases in 2013 plus his album The Inheritors, which is more like IDM/experimental. Since then he's been doing other experimental stuff, like his 2017 album The Animal Spirits. Finally, he wrote the OST for a British documentary.
I would say that Holden, much like Andy Blueman, is taking his talents to movie OSTs. That's probably the best outcome for someone with his ambitions.
He still does electronic-related things. This is probably the most trance-adjacent thing he's done in the past few years, and it's a helluva trip:


In my opinion, he's much too creative for what most of the trance world could enjoy these days and is much better off serving the greater psychedelia community which is a bit more open to experimentation.

He "recently" recorded this great mix for Studio Brussels that is an absolute trip while tripping: https://soundcloud.com/studiobrussel%2Fplayground-2016-9-james-holden
 
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