Still not quite dead. Apparently

Well, hello there. Remember us? After what feels like several lifetimes, trancecontrol.com is back online! And no, before anyone asks, this isn't one of those dramatic reunion announcements where two ageing musicians suddenly discover they have unfinished business, buy expensive synthesizers and announce a world tour. Not yet, anyway. It all started when I (Alex) stumbled into the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. What was supposed to be a quick nostalgic trip down memory lane turned into a full-blown archaeological excavation of our own past. Old websites, news posts, photos, forgotten stories, forum discussions, guestbooks, and thousands upon thousands of files from a time when the internet made horrible noises before allowing you to use it. And the deeper I dug, the more I realised something. Holy crap. We actually did all that?! Reading about our adventures from the outside, almost 30 years later, has been a rather surreal experience. Some things make me laugh out loud. Others give me goosebumps. And some bring a strange sense of sadness for a time that's long gone. Apparently, while we were busy making music, breaking computers, annoying record labels and occasionally getting ourselves into spectacularly stupid situations, we were also part of something much bigger: the internet changing the music industry forever. Who knew? We certainly didn't. We were mostly just trying to make the next track sound better than the previous one. And somehow, along the way, you guys became part of it all. So, why now? Well, trance[]control's 30th anniversary is approaching. Yes, THIRTY YEARS. I recently turned 50, which is frankly a ridiculous administrative error, and I still firmly refuse to become a responsible adult. Life has also finally started to settle down a little. Kids, work, relationships and all those other things that apparently come with being a grown-up have occupied quite a few years. Andreas and I haven't quite found our way back to making music together. Life took us in different directions, and Andreas has built a fantastic solo career as Gaudium, something he absolutely deserves recognition for. As for the future of trance[]control? I genuinely don't know yet. And for once, I'm perfectly fine admitting that. But one thing has become very clear to me. Whatever happens next, our history deserves to be preserved. Not some polished, rewritten version where we pretend everything went according to plan. God knows it didn't. I mean the actual story. The successes, the disasters, the questionable decisions, the ridiculous technology, the music, the people, and all those moments that somehow turned two guys from Gothenburg into something that reached listeners all over the planet. I grew up with 28.8k modems, when downloading a single MP3 could take longer than making a cup of coffee, drinking it, and seriously reconsidering your life choices. Today we carry practically unlimited music in our pockets, and I've reached the age where I can say things like "Back in my day..." without even trying to be funny. Terrifying. But it also makes me realise that our little adventure is now, in its own peculiar way, a piece of internet and music history worth telling. So that's what I'm doing. trancecontrol.com is being rebuilt, with a growing collection of restored original websites, old news, photos, forum conversations, forgotten memories and stories from the early days of digital music. There's already plenty to explore, and much, much more is coming. Some of the material hasn't seen daylight in over 20 years. Some of it I'd completely forgotten existed. And some of it makes me wonder how on earth we ever found time to make music. And to everyone who was there, downloaded our tracks, bought our CDs, wrote in our guestbooks, joined our forums, came to our shows or simply listened: Thank you. Seriously. I'm only now beginning to understand what trance[]control may have meant to some of you. Back then, we were too busy living it to see the bigger picture. Turns out the journey was quite something. And apparently, it isn't entirely over. Much love, Alex trance[]control P.S. If you find something embarrassing in the archives, please remember that I was young, the internet was new, and nobody had invented the concept of permanent digital consequences yet.