Thrillseekers, The - Synaesthesia

dancemania, Nov 17, 2006

Steve Helstrip started out making trance music while working for the computer games developer, Manic Media. Whilst living in Chipping Norton, on the Oxfordshire border, with a relatively basic home studio he produced a euphoric trance track which he called ‘Synaesthesia’. This track became the first release under the name ‘The Thrillseekers’. Signed and released by ‘Neo Records’ at the height of the 1998 trance boom, it went on to sell over 12,000 copies on its initial UK release.

The original version of the track got massive support from top DJ’s such as Paul van Dyk and Paul Oakenfold and it’s still mentioned by many people as one of the ultimate trance classics. Besides the original instrumental version, there was also a vocal version with vocals written and performed by Sheryl Deane. People like Paul van Dyk (who also signed it to his own label ‘Vandit’) and Darude (Ville Virtanen) took care of remixing this track. The vocal version was released as ‘Synaesthesia (Fly Away)’ in the year 2000. On some of the releases you can find ‘Steve Helstrips Essential Mix’, which is a continuous mix containing the following 4 versions: ‘Paul Van Dyks Vocal Mix’, ‘En-Motion Mix’, ‘Paul Van Dyk Dub Mix’ and ‘Alaskas Sunset Mix’.

In 2004 ‘Synaesthesia’ saw a re-release on Steve Helstrip’s very own label ‘Adjusted Music’. This re-release became a big success again worldwide. Especially because of the nice new remixes that were done. Dutchman Jack Molenschot did a remix under his ‘Mesh’ alias, Steve Helstrip himself remixed the track again as well, Russian producers Dmitry Almazov and Sergey Vinogradov made a cool remix under their ‘Bobina’ name, Andy Perring remixed the track as ‘Pulser’ and last but not least, ‘Synaesthesia’ got a very nice Ferry Corsten treatment. Ferry’s remix was supported by DJ’s such as Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk and of course Steve Helstrip and Ferry himself played the track a lot.

The original version of the track is also in the movie The 51st State with Samuel L. Jackson. During the rave party when Felix DeSouza and Dakota Parker are kissing eachother you hear Synaesthesia in the background ...

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