Throughout its 9 instalments, the Pure Trance series has showcased the sound of many talents, acclaimed or rising, but few have clocked up as many years of experience as the co-mixers of Pure Trance Volume 9. They’ve witnessed the rise of trance, set and determined their own curve within the scene and sound, and remained loyal to their roots without ignoring the need to explore. Stoneface & Terminal are Matthias Gierth and Henry Nix from Germany. And they’re about to show you their definition of Pure Trance.
In what way do you identify yourself with Pure Trance?
S&T: “For us the meaning of Pure Trance is to create music that is not just following trends. We know Solarstone’s music since 20 years and can say that his music also inspired our music somehow.”
How would you define Pure Trance – and what does it mean to you as an artist?
S&T: “We are music lovers and very flexible and diverse when it comes to music. Pure Trance is a brand that releases trance and progressive music that is very clean and pure. Their releases are always high quality. They don’t release average music, that’s what we like. Quality over quantity.”
You’ve seen the Pure Trance movement develop and grow. What do you think is the power behind it?
S&T: “We think the power behind it is the strong believe in good music. Of course you have to look at the market to survive but the creativity and quality of your music should be always more important than quantity.”
At one point, Rich popped the question and asked you guys to create a mix for the album – what was the first thought going through your mind?
S&T: “1st thought was “Wow! That’s an honor as we know this album series very well and love it!” 2nd thought was “Will we be the right ones for the job as we always have been a tad different in the trance scene. Will people be with us as our mix won’t be 138 uplifting for 70 minutes?’.
3rd thought was ‘Let’s do it as we love challenges. And if Rich thinks that we are the right ones for this project, we must be doing something right.’”
Why do you think Rich picked you guys as the fellow-mixers for PT9?
S&T: “We were in touch for quite some time as we’ve sent him music for the label, and he liked most of our latest stuff and released it on Pure Trance. We also did our track ‘Lose My Need’ for his ‘Electronic Architecture 4’ album. During the mixing he asked if we could edit some things in the track which we’ve done on point within 10 minutes. Maybe this was also one of the reasons Rich picked us – the way we work. He played our music in his live-streams, we played his music in our live-streams and yeah, somehow we were in touch all the time and had good chats.”
What turned out to be the biggest challenge in creating the mix?
S&T: “The biggest challenge was to find music that fits our requirements. We also created 6 or 7 originals, collabs and remixes which was a challenge but at least that was in our hands. So, the biggest challenge was to get in touch with some of our favorite artists and get exclusive tracks.”
Was it hard to make a track selection? Did anything not make the cut?
S&T: “We wanted to get enough tracks first to choose from. That wasn’t so easy. We know it from ourselves, if we get an exclusive track request for a compilation it takes time to produce something if it’s not right there. So the time window isn’t very big. But somehow we made it and even have the tracks we wanted. Some tracks didn’t make it in the mix but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t like them. They just didn’t fit this time. Maybe next time, who knows.”
Did you create any tracks or remixes yourself, especially for PT9?
S&T: “Yes, we created 7 tracks exclusively for this mix: one original S&T track, three collaborations with Solarstone, Robert Nickson and Sinsonic, a Gundamea remix for Cosmic Baby, two S&T remixes for M.I.K.E. Push & Trinito and Paul Denton.”
Which three tracks are your favorites and why?
S&T: “ Solarstone and Stoneface & Terminal – ‘Mist On The Hill’ – When we talked about a rough concept in our first video chat with Rich, we all said that a collaboration would be great. So we’ve sent Rich some rough idea of a set-up and he came back with this wonderful melody. It didn’t take us long to finish as it was pure fun working on it.
Cosmic Baby – ‘Loops Of Infinity’ (Gundamea Remix) – Harald Bluechel is one of the pioneers of Trance back in the early 90’s. We were like 16 when we heard his ‘Loops Of Infinity’ on German Music-TV. We were blown away by all the music that came out at that time and always wanted to do a remix of this track. So we decided to do it under our Gundamea alias as the deeper style fits really well and is not just an average 2021 Version. After asking for his permission we were even more happy that he really likes our remix. He’s a great person who did and still does more for the music scene than you might know.
Stoneface & Terminal – ‘Frontlines’ – There’s a great story about this track. Matthi loves Science Fiction books. We came from a festival in Croatia and in the plane we posted a picture where the book ‘Frontlines’ by Marko Kloos was lying on Matthi’s legs. One of our followers commented that he knows Marko very well. Matthi was asking him if he can ask Marko why they don’t release the last three books of this series in Germany. Marko Kloos himself told us in the next mail that unfortunately the German publisher decided to not release the whole series in Germany. Matthi was not amused but Marko sent a mail back and had an idea; he would send Matthi all the books with a personal dedication if we write a track for the book series. So we decided to call our track ‘Frontlines’ and it fits really well.”
What do you hope listeners will experience once they’ve pressed play on your PT9 mix?
S&T: “We hope that we can show with this mix that we still love electronic music even after being involved in the scene since ages. For us it’s a never ending journey and a big part in our life. Music is so different, there are no boundaries for us in bpm or sounds, as long as a track is arousing emotions . For us it’s like an expedition through soundscapes and rhythms and we hope people are open to enjoy what we’ve put together.”
Pure Trance Volume 9 is out on November 12th: https://blackhole.lnk.to/pt9