Red Screen – New-York Philharmonic

I when this came out in 2000 - 2001, they were up for sale in the Extrazone DJ Shop in Brussels, Ostend, etc..in Belgium. They would price 'em at about 7 or 8 euros at the time, wich was a cheap alternative for higher priced Tiësto, Corsten and Van Buuren stuff. It was a time of the great Dutch Trance boom, and Belgian trance producers were trying to keep up with producing a quality trance sound to compete with what was released to the world from the likes Magik Muzik, In Trance We Trust and Armind. Because of that it is worth ing that these were also the kind of discs that would rot for months on the store's shelves before finding their way to the sales section or other second hand stores where they would go for half the price. This is how I got my copy of Red Screen, wich was a low profile 2000 club hit. Those saying that all clubs in Belgium played this are lying. Except for La Bush maybe ;-). The appreciation of these releases came years after. Few DJ would pick this up for it's reputation. Production value has always been underwhelming, knowing that Mr. Sam and Fred Baker were rather good at remixing other artists. But also for using same samples from other better-known trance productions of the time. (Out of time, New York Philharmonic, You & Me and comparing Ernst - Pressure Drop Mr. Sam Remix are all similar like carbon copies ! Samples from DJ Dag - Inside your soul on the Yellow Screen disc, Lars Nielsen - Muting on Red Screen's New York Philharmonic, Central Seven's Missing vocoder was sampled in Blue Screen - Stay At Home, for Green Screen it's Art of Trance - Madagasga on Destination Hell and Push - Strange world on Columbian Heroes, etc... ). This was probably to cut on the production rates. It's sad knowing that Mr. Sam and Fred Baker didn't even earn a fraction of the money this stuff is selling today. And that they surely wouldn't agree by those lobbyists that are overhyping and artificially inflating the value of the Screen series, productions that were meant to sell cheap quality trance for everybody. It's a shame too how the younger generation will wrongly think these discs were always this highly valued and hard to find... when in reality they were easy-to-get bargains.

Friday Sickness is clearly a remaking of Dillinger & Capone's 'Trysting Fields' (DJ Mr Sam & Mikka Mafia Mix), released 6 months prior. Many of the components are the same, Mr Sam had obviously come up with a sound he was keen to work on. I actually prefer Trysting Fields to Friday sickness.

This Screen Format out of four Screens, Red Screen, Blue Screen, Yellow Screen and Green Screen is an absolute Highlight and even a Piece of Art of the Time of the three Millenium-Years 1999, 2000, 2001 in the Progressive Trance Style-Genre. These four Vinyl-Records even stand for the whole Style (or Genre) of Progressive Trance. Because the best Years, Progressive Trance had, were the same Years, the Years of 1999-2001. Eventually.

The real hit of this record is Friday Sickness : each time I've heard DJ George's play it at La Bush, it gave me such a thrill... Huge trance hit, with superb bassline, deep and powerful strings in the middle of the track, shows that the duo De Backer - Mr. Sam has been one of the best on the Belgian scene during the end of the last century.
A true classic, I will never remove it from my playlist...
Incomparable.