The Best of 2024 results are here! Below you'll find the top 100 tracks, as well as the best artists, albums, labels, and compilations from the scene, all voted on by members here on TranceFix.
Around 1,500 collective tracks were submitted this year. Thank you once again to the great community members who participated in voting, not to mention the sharing, thoughts and discussion throughout the year in the forum. Let's get started!
Best Artist
Winner: Quietman
Runner up: Activa
Special Mention: Julian Del Agranda, Enigma State
A big congratulations to legendary 90s producer Quietman, who seemed to reappear on Bandcamp, out of nowhere. On that platform, he's been dropping a fine selection of Trance and Progressive tracks, with a magic feeling that's a step above the rest. Not only is his sound sonically tight, featuring many beautiful synths and sounds, the tracks also deliver memorable journeys filled with many grooves, twists, and turns. Dust2Water, Indian Eel and Under The Gaze were three of my personal favorites, but over eight different tracks were submitted in the top 10s, with five making it to the final list. A real treat to have him back producing.
Congratulations to Activa for the runner up spot. Not only is he delivering fantastic originals and remixes year after year, he is also singlehandedly powering half the scene's greatest Trance music through his Borderline label. His Anima Remix is the best vocal trance track of the year, and his remixes of Sculptured and From Within showcase his signature sound in the best way possible. Four of his tracks make it into the top 30 ranked list (six total). Incredibly blessed to have him work so diligently
Special mention to Enigma State and Julian Del Agranda, who are holding down the classic euphoric sounds better than anyone else in the scene. Outstanding producers who seem to get better every year.
Best Label
Winner: Borderline
Runner up: Pure Trance
Special Mention: UTE
Congratulations to Borderline who, for the third year running, is voted best label. Not only that, no fewer than 14 tracks from its catalogue made their way into our top 100, seeing them easily dominating the label votes. It feels like all the best producers from the scene are ending up here right now, whether that’s lesser known/upcoming producers such as @Sunda and Aeon Shift, or scene veterans like Slipstream, Mac & Monday and Stoneface & Terminal. Loving the increased variety of artists and sounds that we saw in 2024. The Enigma State debut with S-Bahn was awesome, and the Universe EP vinyl release a highlight. This label is the best thing to happen to Trance in the modern era, no question!
Pure Trance is runner up, with users on the TF submitting tracks from their label over a hundred times via the different top 10’s, nine of which receiving enough votes to make it to the final 100. Echoes of Silence and Lately are two of the biggest tracks of the year, so big props to Rich for believing in the classic sounds and making it happen on his label. Pure Trance and its sub-labels do an excellent job of showcasing many different scene sounds, whether that’s darker stuff from Digital Blonde, Uplifting anthems or more experimental tracks from the likes of Allende. Consistently delivering for over a decade now, with no sign of slowing down.
Special mention to UTE, the best underground Trance label at this point in time. They seem to be the only underground label that exclusively focuses on Trance sounds, and with that we get a select number of infrequent yet high-quality releases each year, that so far always see a track featuring in the top 10.
Best Album
Winner: Ferry Corsten - Connect
Runner up: Quietman - Found Horizons
Special Mention: Solar Alliance - HAMMARÖ-23
Never expected to see Ferry Corsten appear on a Trancefix final results list! The supersaws and collabs are out in force in Connect, and the end result is actually a very catchy and well produced album that strikes a nice balance between commercial appeal, classic trance sounds and modern melodic club energy. Even if far from his best, it’s easy to understand why people are resonating with this one, considering the appetite for classic sounds is ever unwavering and the commercial side of the genre is still very popular with a large majority of listeners.
Quietman’s album Found Horizons is runner up, a true hidden gem of a find from one of the members of the forum. The bevy of unique-sounding tracks on this album, all in keeping with that old school spirit (but with a modern touch) obviously resonated with the members here. The “rediscovered and unreleased” origin of the tracks is quite telling. You can just feel they’ve in part come from the foregone era progressive music when sound design and track memorability were paramount.
Special Mention to Solar Alliance (aka the UTE lads), who work as a combined force to channel their passion for Trance into an experimental album of underground goodness that sounds technically gorgeous and atmospherically on point.
Best Compilation
Winner: In Search of Sunrise 20
ISOS 20 did a good job at celebrating its 25th anniversary and making this year's installment better than we’ve seen it in a long time. Of the six included mixes (from some great names), Solarstone's very much stood out, transforming this into one of the best ISOS comps since ISOS 7. He included some great artists and captured the ISOS spirit well. Perfectly suited for this kind of compilation and it shows.
There is no other major mixed Trance compilation in the scene right now, so it’s not surprising that nothing else competed with ISOS 20. Other compilations had votes, but the consensus for these was too small to produce a statistically significant outcome - thus failing to produce a runner up nomination for this year.
Top 100 Tracks
@EnigmaState has done it again. For the fourth year running he takes the no1 track position with Echoes of Silence. Big congrats to you once again. It’s clear why this keeps happening. The classic sound is not a fad that is simply targeting nostalgia. It's a formula that demands delightful, ear pleasing sounds and track structures/arrangements that build and create tension in an interesting way. It's just great music, and both mainstream and underground lovers can resonate to some degree, hence Enigma State's ability to continually draw consensus from different pockets of listeners across the scene.
As usual, the list is divided into 2, ranked and unranked.
Ranked (30)
Unranked (70)
Thanks again to everyone who voted. What do you think of the results? This year the ratio of underground to mainstream is less equal, with more mainstream sounds and conventional labels appearing. There were also way more unique tracks than in any past vote, meaning it was much harder to find clear breakaway tracks in the top 30. In 2023 for example the top 30 tracks were far more separated from the unranked, however this time around the top 5 were indeed clear winners, and the split between them all fairly narrow. A few more votes could have easily pushed a different one to the top. Overal a very sexy top 30. The End of Year mix celebrating these should be dropping soon.
2024 Scene Review
Just a quick one this year...
Classic sounds definitely growing in the mainstream. For the first time in years we have labels like Armada and Flashover featured in the top list, with Silva City's 'The Journey' finishing in the top 15. Pure Trance and Borderline were also releasing classic sounds through Enigma State and Julian Del Agranda tracks, and the underground scene continued to lean into a number of different styles that clearly take inspiration from the older era. Classic Trance sounds for the major comeback in 2025? It seems to be trending that way!
The underground side of things is growing year on year too. There was already an explosion of new labels putting out Trance and Progressive in 2023 and it just continued on in 2024. The amount of new artists and labels is relentless. That doesn't necessarily mean we had more quality tracks this year, in fact it was arguably a bit less impressive than the last, especially on the album and compilation front. Labels continue to shy away from proper bespoke mixed compilations, and the many unmixed ones that were released have serious quality control issues and lack impact. This all said, it still remains the most exciting scene to be plugged into and follow, with hundreds of good tracks and producers driving a thriving online and club scene across many different countries. Excellent for the scene in general, but still hoping more UTE like labels appear, as realistically it is them and maybe Space Trax as the only two that focus purely on Trance music.
Combine the mainstream trends and the growing underground and there is a lot to be positive with in terms of how the scene is growing. I'd say it's better than it was 10 years ago, and if things continue then who knows what heights it could reach again.
Site updates
Trancefix is growing! - Before 2020 the old platform was in slow and constant decline across daily active users and site visits. Not only have we reversed all of this, but according to our analytics platform the amount of new visits (people who have never visited before) increased by 200% compared to 2023. There were 40,000 unique users who visited the site across the year, most coming from the UK and USA, and a lot from Russia, Netherlands and Germany. In total, people visited from over 160 different countries! 40 more countries than last year and some I never even knew existed. So cool to see people enjoying the site from all over the world.
Site updates - There's not too many more visual improvements to make to the site now. We fixed a lot of bugs this year and maybe there's one or two more to catch, so keep us posted if you find some. We're still thinking of a potential way to filter the upcoming release section by genre, so will look into that at some point, and the idea of doing a Trancefix top 1000 still is very appealing... we'll see!
Label updates - Just another two releases this year with the two Forum EPs. Maybe not as much as we hoped, but still very satisfied with how they both turned out. Loads of votes in your top 10s had our label's tracks and that's definitely great motivation to continue. Forum EP03 is somewhat in the works so expect that maybe in Spring, and another EP with a producer featuring in our top 30 this year is also starting to take shape.
As for interviews, only one, but it was one of my favorites The Digital Blonde. For 2025, Hoopoe will be chatting with us before his album drop, and I would love to get an interview with a few underground artists too. TF Radio had way more action, and we've got at least 4 more lined up waiting to go.
That's it! Thanks @Everyone
Around 1,500 collective tracks were submitted this year. Thank you once again to the great community members who participated in voting, not to mention the sharing, thoughts and discussion throughout the year in the forum. Let's get started!
Best Artist
Winner: Quietman
Runner up: Activa
Special Mention: Julian Del Agranda, Enigma State
A big congratulations to legendary 90s producer Quietman, who seemed to reappear on Bandcamp, out of nowhere. On that platform, he's been dropping a fine selection of Trance and Progressive tracks, with a magic feeling that's a step above the rest. Not only is his sound sonically tight, featuring many beautiful synths and sounds, the tracks also deliver memorable journeys filled with many grooves, twists, and turns. Dust2Water, Indian Eel and Under The Gaze were three of my personal favorites, but over eight different tracks were submitted in the top 10s, with five making it to the final list. A real treat to have him back producing.
Congratulations to Activa for the runner up spot. Not only is he delivering fantastic originals and remixes year after year, he is also singlehandedly powering half the scene's greatest Trance music through his Borderline label. His Anima Remix is the best vocal trance track of the year, and his remixes of Sculptured and From Within showcase his signature sound in the best way possible. Four of his tracks make it into the top 30 ranked list (six total). Incredibly blessed to have him work so diligently
Special mention to Enigma State and Julian Del Agranda, who are holding down the classic euphoric sounds better than anyone else in the scene. Outstanding producers who seem to get better every year.
Best Label
Winner: Borderline
Runner up: Pure Trance
Special Mention: UTE
Congratulations to Borderline who, for the third year running, is voted best label. Not only that, no fewer than 14 tracks from its catalogue made their way into our top 100, seeing them easily dominating the label votes. It feels like all the best producers from the scene are ending up here right now, whether that’s lesser known/upcoming producers such as @Sunda and Aeon Shift, or scene veterans like Slipstream, Mac & Monday and Stoneface & Terminal. Loving the increased variety of artists and sounds that we saw in 2024. The Enigma State debut with S-Bahn was awesome, and the Universe EP vinyl release a highlight. This label is the best thing to happen to Trance in the modern era, no question!
Pure Trance is runner up, with users on the TF submitting tracks from their label over a hundred times via the different top 10’s, nine of which receiving enough votes to make it to the final 100. Echoes of Silence and Lately are two of the biggest tracks of the year, so big props to Rich for believing in the classic sounds and making it happen on his label. Pure Trance and its sub-labels do an excellent job of showcasing many different scene sounds, whether that’s darker stuff from Digital Blonde, Uplifting anthems or more experimental tracks from the likes of Allende. Consistently delivering for over a decade now, with no sign of slowing down.
Special mention to UTE, the best underground Trance label at this point in time. They seem to be the only underground label that exclusively focuses on Trance sounds, and with that we get a select number of infrequent yet high-quality releases each year, that so far always see a track featuring in the top 10.
Best Album
Winner: Ferry Corsten - Connect
Runner up: Quietman - Found Horizons
Special Mention: Solar Alliance - HAMMARÖ-23
Never expected to see Ferry Corsten appear on a Trancefix final results list! The supersaws and collabs are out in force in Connect, and the end result is actually a very catchy and well produced album that strikes a nice balance between commercial appeal, classic trance sounds and modern melodic club energy. Even if far from his best, it’s easy to understand why people are resonating with this one, considering the appetite for classic sounds is ever unwavering and the commercial side of the genre is still very popular with a large majority of listeners.
Quietman’s album Found Horizons is runner up, a true hidden gem of a find from one of the members of the forum. The bevy of unique-sounding tracks on this album, all in keeping with that old school spirit (but with a modern touch) obviously resonated with the members here. The “rediscovered and unreleased” origin of the tracks is quite telling. You can just feel they’ve in part come from the foregone era progressive music when sound design and track memorability were paramount.
Special Mention to Solar Alliance (aka the UTE lads), who work as a combined force to channel their passion for Trance into an experimental album of underground goodness that sounds technically gorgeous and atmospherically on point.
Best Compilation
Winner: In Search of Sunrise 20
ISOS 20 did a good job at celebrating its 25th anniversary and making this year's installment better than we’ve seen it in a long time. Of the six included mixes (from some great names), Solarstone's very much stood out, transforming this into one of the best ISOS comps since ISOS 7. He included some great artists and captured the ISOS spirit well. Perfectly suited for this kind of compilation and it shows.
There is no other major mixed Trance compilation in the scene right now, so it’s not surprising that nothing else competed with ISOS 20. Other compilations had votes, but the consensus for these was too small to produce a statistically significant outcome - thus failing to produce a runner up nomination for this year.
Top 100 Tracks
@EnigmaState has done it again. For the fourth year running he takes the no1 track position with Echoes of Silence. Big congrats to you once again. It’s clear why this keeps happening. The classic sound is not a fad that is simply targeting nostalgia. It's a formula that demands delightful, ear pleasing sounds and track structures/arrangements that build and create tension in an interesting way. It's just great music, and both mainstream and underground lovers can resonate to some degree, hence Enigma State's ability to continually draw consensus from different pockets of listeners across the scene.
As usual, the list is divided into 2, ranked and unranked.
Ranked (30)
- Enigma State - Echoes of Silence [Pure Trance Neon]
- Julian Del Agranda - Time Warp [Borderline]
- Enigma State & Sean Tyas - Lately [Pure Trance]
- Enigma State - S-Bahn [Borderline]
- Ferry Corsten, Marsh - Fulfillment [Flashover]
- Mikkel Rev - Whorl [UTE]
- Factoria - Sculptured (Activa Remix) [Borderline]
- Quietman - Indian Eel [Self Release]
- Narel - Cut My Dreams [Trancefix Recordings]
- Martinou - Expanding [Mule]
- Palindromes - Anima (Activa Remix) [Borderline]
- Synthazia - Wunderland [Pure Trance]
- Rambal Cochet - Body-Buzz [Neptune Discs]
- Aeon Shift - Another World [Borderline]
- Silva City - The Journey [Armada]
- Introversion - Hopeless Dreaming [Makatao]
- Quietman - Dust2Water [Self Release]
- Hoopoe - Aracari [Forescape Digital]
- B from E - Amnesia [Haws]
- Brandt Hoff - Pheonix Alpha [FSOE]
- Jaron Inc & Wavetraxx - Summerbreeze (Wavetraxx Mix) [Drizzly Eclipse]
- Activa - Dark Matter [Borderline]
- Fader Cap - Blue Pool [Butter Sessions]
- Sunda - Mirage (Julian Del Agranda Remix) [Borderline]
- Slipstream & Sonic Element - Forgiven [Pure Trance]
- Aeon Shift - Celestial Awakening [Pure Trance Neon]
- DJ Dazzle - From Within (Activa Remix) [Borderline]
- B from E - Symetrix [Haws]
- Clint - Exosphere (Main Mix) [Slowciety]
- Alkemy - Cloud Detox (GNMR Rework) [Cindelic]
Unranked (70)
- Esok - Lavender [Rune Recordings]
- LostLegend - Liminal Spaces [Self Release]
- Allan Morrow - Forward Charge [Pure Trance]
- Acid Synthesis - Repetitions [Planet 303]
- Quietman - Full Throttle (Dreamtime Mix) [Self Release]
- Work The Peripherals - BurningBurning [Self Release]
- Ovnimoon - Feel On Me [Forescape Digital]
- Bobby Summa - Flower [Trancefix Recordings]
- Baby Angel - eQuip [39 Records]
- Mikkel Rev - Tension [UTE]
- Advanced Civilizations - Regener8 [Test of Time]
- Dreamphaze - Life Cycle [Love on the Rocks]
- Rigson - Ariel 94 [Self Release]
- The Thrillseekers - Be With Me [Adjusted]
- Grant Trowbridge - Discover [Borderline]
- Airwave - Inner Child [Airwave Music]
- Work The Peripherals - Replica [Self Release]
- Alan Backdrop - Ubevi [Space Trax]
- Coredata - Strangelove [JOOF]
- Quietman - Under Their Gaze [Self Release]
- Hedustma & Ovnimoon - Humanoid [Arlette Records]
- Ija - When We Dream (First Mix) [Self Release]
- Chris Johnson - The Void [Borderline: R&D]
- Factor B - The Girl With Her Head In The Clouds (Ellie's Song) [Theatre of the Mind]
- Ferry Corsten - Remember [Flashover]
- Eletania - Papillon (Avalon 62 Mix) [Trancefix Recordings]
- Work The Peripherals - Blue Neon [The Space Between Us]
- Acid Synthesis - 303 Sunrises [Planet 303]
- Siskin - Connected (Standard Form's Waiting for Stars Dub) [Pure Progressive]
- Rambal Cochet - Hertza Haeon [Junction Forest]
- Cybernet - New Era (M-Ocean Mix) [Gestalt]
- LostLegend - Running Man [Pure Trance Neon]
- Darren Tate & Solarstone - A Long Way Home (Jody Wisternoff & James Grant Remix) [Anjunabeats]
- Clint - Exosphere (Ambient Mix) [Slowciety]
- Allende - Fading Light [Pure Trance]
- Daryl Wilson - Upstream [EDM Recordings]
- Cybernet - Key to Equilibrium [Gestalt]
- Naden - Cadence [EDM Records]
- Julian Del Agranda - Trancefixed [Trancefix Recordings]
- Horizons - Pokhara@Dawn (Narel Remix) [Landscapes Music]
- Quietman - Oraculo [Self Release]
- Aerium & Bobby Summa - The Internal Screen [Trancefix Recordings]
- Solarstone & Super-Frog Saves Tokyo - Rust (Luke Terry Remix) [Pure Trance]
- Julian Del Agranda - El Sueno [Borderline]
- Oprofessionell - Become (Something Else Mix) [UTE]
- Ki/Ki - Don't Stop (Emotional Mix) [Slash]
- Activa - Velika (Coredata Remix) [VII]
- Mikkel Rev - Ocean X [Airways]
- The Space Brothers & Sue McLaren - Way Back [Armada Captivating]
- Eletun Selona - Sunla (Eletun's Elevate Mix) [Sewer Sender]
- Luke Terry - Deep Space [Borderline]
- Trance Wax - Distance (Coast 2 Coast Remix) [Armada]
- Priori - Sub Lux (Sansibar Remix) [Kalahari Oyster Cult]
- Slipstream - Eternal Dream [Borderline]
- AA Meeting - Supercell [VII]
- Dylan Forbes - High Point [Hypersoft]
- Aerium & Julian Del Agranda - Flawless [Pure Trance]
- DJ Ali - Eternal Drift [Space Trax]
- Rambal Cochet - Sasha The Explorer [Snippets Music]
- L-3P - Dewneia [Space Trax]
- Oprofessionell - Longing (Heavenly Bongo Mix) [UTE]
- Bethel Music - Have It All (Sonic Element Remix) [Self Release]
- Shjva - Chrysalis [Warning]
- Activa & Marcos - Elevate [Borderline]
- Exotek - Arrival [JOOF]
- Midian - Requiem [Trancefix Recordings]
- The Digital Blonde & Lauren Lyon - Iris [Ovnimoon Recordings]
- Sunda - The Dragon [Landscapes Music]
- Voiski - Romance Mentale [Funnuvojere Records]
- Adam Reece - Simulator [Borderline]
Thanks again to everyone who voted. What do you think of the results? This year the ratio of underground to mainstream is less equal, with more mainstream sounds and conventional labels appearing. There were also way more unique tracks than in any past vote, meaning it was much harder to find clear breakaway tracks in the top 30. In 2023 for example the top 30 tracks were far more separated from the unranked, however this time around the top 5 were indeed clear winners, and the split between them all fairly narrow. A few more votes could have easily pushed a different one to the top. Overal a very sexy top 30. The End of Year mix celebrating these should be dropping soon.
2024 Scene Review
Just a quick one this year...
Classic sounds definitely growing in the mainstream. For the first time in years we have labels like Armada and Flashover featured in the top list, with Silva City's 'The Journey' finishing in the top 15. Pure Trance and Borderline were also releasing classic sounds through Enigma State and Julian Del Agranda tracks, and the underground scene continued to lean into a number of different styles that clearly take inspiration from the older era. Classic Trance sounds for the major comeback in 2025? It seems to be trending that way!
The underground side of things is growing year on year too. There was already an explosion of new labels putting out Trance and Progressive in 2023 and it just continued on in 2024. The amount of new artists and labels is relentless. That doesn't necessarily mean we had more quality tracks this year, in fact it was arguably a bit less impressive than the last, especially on the album and compilation front. Labels continue to shy away from proper bespoke mixed compilations, and the many unmixed ones that were released have serious quality control issues and lack impact. This all said, it still remains the most exciting scene to be plugged into and follow, with hundreds of good tracks and producers driving a thriving online and club scene across many different countries. Excellent for the scene in general, but still hoping more UTE like labels appear, as realistically it is them and maybe Space Trax as the only two that focus purely on Trance music.
Combine the mainstream trends and the growing underground and there is a lot to be positive with in terms of how the scene is growing. I'd say it's better than it was 10 years ago, and if things continue then who knows what heights it could reach again.
Site updates
Trancefix is growing! - Before 2020 the old platform was in slow and constant decline across daily active users and site visits. Not only have we reversed all of this, but according to our analytics platform the amount of new visits (people who have never visited before) increased by 200% compared to 2023. There were 40,000 unique users who visited the site across the year, most coming from the UK and USA, and a lot from Russia, Netherlands and Germany. In total, people visited from over 160 different countries! 40 more countries than last year and some I never even knew existed. So cool to see people enjoying the site from all over the world.
Site updates - There's not too many more visual improvements to make to the site now. We fixed a lot of bugs this year and maybe there's one or two more to catch, so keep us posted if you find some. We're still thinking of a potential way to filter the upcoming release section by genre, so will look into that at some point, and the idea of doing a Trancefix top 1000 still is very appealing... we'll see!
Label updates - Just another two releases this year with the two Forum EPs. Maybe not as much as we hoped, but still very satisfied with how they both turned out. Loads of votes in your top 10s had our label's tracks and that's definitely great motivation to continue. Forum EP03 is somewhat in the works so expect that maybe in Spring, and another EP with a producer featuring in our top 30 this year is also starting to take shape.
As for interviews, only one, but it was one of my favorites The Digital Blonde. For 2025, Hoopoe will be chatting with us before his album drop, and I would love to get an interview with a few underground artists too. TF Radio had way more action, and we've got at least 4 more lined up waiting to go.
That's it! Thanks @Everyone
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Spoiler!)
