The Trance Dance Music Blog

Trance Dance Music Artist Review: Sean Tyas

As a testament to our dedication to our readers, we have recently gotten a flood of emails asking to review more of our favorite artists, so without further ado, here is one of favorite artists that we feel is pretty much the epitome of what Trance Dance Music means:

Artist Name: Sean Tyas
Country of Origin: America, New York City
Aliases: 64 Bit, Angyla, Sonar Systems, TT, Tyas & Lawrence
DJ Mag 2008 Ranking: 54
Official Website(s): http://www.myspace.com/seantyas, http://www.seantyasmusic.com/

Interesting facts:

Sean Tyas exploded from relative obscurity into a worldwide trance name in early to mid 2006 with his first single Lift signed by John Askew on his label Discover, which historically has an amazing track record of great uplifting tracks.  His tracks were being played by Armin van Buuren, Tiesto, Ferry, and every big name DJ in the blink of an eye.

As a double whammy for Tyas, at the same time his first single Lift came out, it was also announced that he won Sander van Doorn’s remix competition for Punk’d, beating out 250 other remixers to take the grand prize.

Sean is an NYC/philly regional local, even though he now lives in Switzerland with his wife Mirella.

Artist Analysis

Productions: As we had mentioned before, putting aside our cheering for a local DJ (I still remember our local philly DJ’s giving me a copy of Lift before it had been signed to Discover), Sean Tyas simply has amazing talent when it comes to producing.  He’s mastered the art of uplifting trance; especially with insane buildups and payoffs.  Although it’s a common theme that many of his songs sound similar (with the same background beats, acid gates), throughout all his tracks he retains a pulsing and driving life of its own that makes every track and remix gleam with its uniqueness.
Score – 9/10

Remixing Ability: Sean Tyas is definitely among the top elite producers in terms of remixing ability.  I mean if you didn’t catch the interesting fact above, he beat out 250 other contests in a remix contest for SvD’s Punkd.  Listen to his remix of Mike Foyle’s Shipwrecked, turning a classic and typical Mike Foyle chilled track with its usual haunting piano chords into a song that will tear up the dancefloor and mind of anyone who loves uplifting trance music.  Like all of his remixes, he leaves the distinctive portion of the song in there, so no one will ever make a mistake in knowing what the song is.  The scary part is he does it so well it feels almost impossible that a song that was so many BPM slower and in energy as well suddenly turns into a different track that has the essence of the original at its heart.  Listen to his remix of Vincent de Moor’s Fly Away, his remix of Airwave, Lost in Love, Punk’d, Diary of Jane, Divine, etc to see more of what we mean.  Absolutely amazing.
Score: 10/10

DJ ability: This is a conflicted category for us, because the sets he has put together earlier on in his career basically ended up sounding like one long uplifting trance track.  Make no mistake about it though, when this is done in a club where he is the headline DJ, it makes for one of the most fun and amazing nights possible where the entire club is just dancing the entire night.  Over time, his set mixing and track selection have got much better and varied, so I feel we can safely give him a decent score in this category now.  If you have the chance to see him live, don’t walk just RUN to go see him.  In terms of his recorded sets and radio shows, about average ability for mixing and track selection.
Score – 6/10

Conclusion: Like another masterful production artist we reviewed, Orjan Nilsen, Sean Tyas is masterful in producing and especially remixing tracks.  His recorded set DJ ability is about the only flaw in his game right now that is preventing us from giving him a perfect score on the overall scale.  As was the case with Orjan though, we will judge him purely on his ability to contribute to the experience of the Trance Dance Music that we all know and love.  He makes absolutely electrifying trance songs and trance remixes.  So in keeping with this blog’s theme, we feel that his contributions in casual listening with his productions and remixes are second to none, and if you have any doubts about how his sets sound live, then check him out for yourself and stop being a deprived human.

Bottom-Line Trance Dance Music Score – 9.5/10

Vote for your favorite artists today and get a free track

Just in case some of you didn’t already know, the voting for DJ mag’s top 100 DJ’s of the year has started.  Although we all know this is more of a popularity contest than anything, there is some merit of truth to it, and I’ve made the entire staff here at TDM submit their picks.  This is one of the best ways for you to support your favorite artists, as even though the poll means absolutely nothing in terms of their talent, (look at the list, half of the people on there aren’t even active and/or make garbage tunes) but it definitely does in terms of exposure and giving them the spotlight.  On top of all of this, we’re pleased to announce that TDM readers have access to a free track after submitting your five favorite picks.  None of this garbage bitrate illegal track either, it’s a full-fledged fully legal 320 kbps track.  The offer is through trackitdown.com, and after confirming your votes, you will get a link from them for you to pick and download your track.  In these tough economic times, I know there’s a frugal side of every one of our readers here.

For those who have not voted before, it’s quite a simple process.  You pick your five favorite artists/producers/djs.  Number one gets the most points, number two gets less than that, number three gets less than that as well, etc. etc.  After you submit your picks, check your email and click confirm to make your votes legit + get your free track.  You can do all the following below at:

http://top100djs.djmag.com/

Have fun supporting your favorite artists!

Quick Update: Way Out West Free Track and Update

Just a quick update today, the nice PR folks over at Raw Material (Danny Howells, Way Out West’s etc. Label) want to extend an offer to all of the readers here at TDM a free track to commemorate their new Single, Album, and Website release. You can check UltraViolet, a new track on their upcoming album out here at:

http://www.wayoutwest.mu/news/get-free-track/55/

The press release for this is below…

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Single: ‘Only Love’

Artist: Way Out West

Release Date: 7^th September 2009

Laurent Garnier – “As funky as always …Will play that one out.”

Kissy Sell Out – “Nice … gimmie gimmie”

Darko Esser – “Good to hear there’s a new album from WOW on the way. This is a strong package! “

Bristol-based House act Way Out West release ‘Only Love’ the first single from their long awaited fourth album ‘We Love Machine’ on 7^th September.

The single will be released on their own label via Hope Recordings and sees Nick Warren and Jody Wisternoff make a welcome return – having been DJing extensively in their individual capacities.

Way Out West made their debut in 1997 and top 15 single ‘The Gift’ was their biggest hit to date (it sired 400 remixes!) Their work has been featured in Grey’s Anatomy and The O.C. and they have recently been remixing Amazonian chants for the BBC series ‘The Tribe’.

Remix-wise WOW have notably worked with the likes of Faithless, Orbital, Kosheen and Echo and the Bunnymen – to name but a few – over their lengthy career.

‘Only Love’ features Jonathan Mendelsohn on vocals plus some original Eighties keyboards – which lend themselves to the title of the forthcoming album.

The single also contains mixes by Jerome Isma-Ae, John Tejada, Glimpse and WOW themselves.

WOW will be touring the UK and Europe to promote the single and album releases.

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I personally love Way Out West, especially their older stuff.  Mindcircus is quite possibly one of the most complex melodies that I have ever heard in a trance track, yet is unbelievably catchy and just has that hook that grabs your attention.  Anyone who is involved in producing music or has friends who do can tell you about how much harder it gets exponentially to add diversity and variation to your track while keeping the catchiness of a simplistic track.  So check it out, help yourself out to a free track (without illegally downloading it for once!) and stay tuned for more updates!

Join us at Electric Zoo in NYC!

Hi all, just a quick update for all our readers our there.  The entire staff here at TDM from the editors to the marketing team to the site admins will all be at the Electric Zoo Festival both days in New York City’s Randall’s Island on September 5th and 6th.  This is definitely an event that anyone even remotely close should make a trip out to.  Made Event, which handles most of NYC’s higher profile EDM talent, has really outdone themselves this time by securing probably the nicest venue to date for two days.  The artist lineup is just awesome, as you can see below.  If any of our readers are planning on going and want to say hello to us, simply use the Contact Us link at the top and one of our editors will let you know where you can find us.  We would love to put a face to some of our audience, so see you all there!

If you want more information on this event or would like to purchase tickets, please visit http://www.electriczoofestival.com for more information.

ASOT 417 – Outstanding Show

We usually don’t write about individual radio shows that aren’t milestone ones (like ASOT 400 etc), particularly because there’s so many that we love.  Above & Beyond’s TATW, Andy Moor’s podcast, Gareth Emery’s, PVD’s VONYC, DJ Shah’s Music for Balaeric People, Aly & Fila’s Future Sound of Egypt, and of course Armin’s ASOT… these are just a short list of radio shows; some weekly, some on a more irregular schedule, but chances are your favorite artist/DJ/producer probably has one if you look for it.  Due to the large volume of radio shows, we are not able to cover all of them on a consistent basis, but we felt that this particular episode is extraordinarily outstanding.  Judging by our staff’s overall reaction in addition to other opinions spread through some very credible sources, we know we are not the only ones who have noticed.  So without much further ado, here is the tracklist below, so go and check out the latest episode even if you don’t normally follow ASOT or Armin and thank us later.   While the DJ has a big role in track slection, mixing, and many other factors in live sets, radio shows are more traditionally used as a vehicle to display the plethora of amazing new tunes.  On that note, the great nature of this episode is more a tribute to how many hot tracks are upcoming than anything else; which is good news for any EDM fan.

1. John O Callaghan feat. Audrey Gallagher – Take It All Away (Marcus Schossow Nu Prog remix) (Armada)
2. Pryda – Waves (Pryda)
3. Enya – ID (Jody Wisternoff bootleg)
4. Mac & Mac – Solid Session (First State remix) (Magik Muzik)
5. Faruk Sabanci & Nurettin Colak – Te Quiero Mi Amor (Shah music)
6. Ronski Speed feat. Ana – The Deep Devine (Gareth Emery Remix) (Euphonic)
7. Three Drives – Automatic City (Orjan Nilsen Re-wiz)
8. M.I.K.E. – Sunrise At Palamos 2009 (Gareth Emery remix)
9. Sean Tyas – I Remember Now (Sied van Riel remix) (FSOE)
10. Jochen Miller – Brace Yourself (High Contrast)
11. Arnej – There Are No Coincidences (Armada)
12. Activa & Chris vs. Matt Kidd – U.R. (Stoneface & Terminal Remix) (Discover)
13. Corderoy – Kyrie (Mondo)
14. Jon O Bir – Answers (Vandit)
15. TUNE OF THE WEEK : Gaia – Tuvan (Andy Blueman remix) (Armind)
16. Simon Patterson – Always (Reset)
17. FUTURE FAVORITE: RAM – RAMsterdam (Jorn van Deynhoven remix) (ASOT)
18. Sly One – This Late Stage (Aly & Fila remix) (FSOE)
19. Ian Betts – False Gods (Discover)
20. Mark Sherry & James Allan vs William Daniel – Wired (Dark Tech Dub mix)
21. ASOT Radio Classic: Robert Gitelman – Children of The Sun

Amazing mix of starting off with some more chilled beats, moving to more balaeric and melodic pieces, and then more than an hour+ of absolutely thumping and grooving DANCE music.  We simply had to add that in, because of the nature of the blog, this is exactly the kind of music that moves us and keeps us going back for more.  Oh and a Gareth Emery remix of such a great classic like Sunrise at Palamos, a vintage ASOT radio classic like Children of the Sun, (which pretty much perfectly embodies what the spirit of this blog is about with hard hitting beats, amazingly addictive melody, and one of the best club rocking production tools in existence – silences) and no filler feeding tracks contribute to one of the finest regular episodes we’ve heard from Armin in a long time.  Oh, and if that last amazingly long slightly run-on sentence confused you, what I’m talking about can be put succinctly into 8 words: Almost as good as Veracocha – Carte Blanche live.  We don’t really provide download links for music here, but just google state of trance 417 and there are plenty of spammier sites that do.  Enjoy!