Hypnotised: A Journey Through Trance Music (1990–2005) is a deep dive into one of electronic music’s most emotional and misunderstood genres. In this richly researched and vividly written volume, Arjan Rietveld follows trance from its early stirrings in European clubs and warehouses to its explosion as a global phenomenon, focusing on the fifteen pivotal years when the sound’s identity, heroes and anthems were forged. Rather than telling the story as a dry chronology of hits and festivals, he approaches trance as a living culture: a web of labels, clubs, record shops, pirate radio shows, message boards, white labels and homemade tapes that carried a very particular feeling around the world.

Rietveld maps the genre’s evolution with a crate‑digger’s precision and a fan’s memory for goosebump moments. He traces the early 1990s crossover between techno, house and ambient that gave birth to trance’s first hypnotic loops; follows the rise of landmark imprints and producers who defined the sound; and examines how different regional scenes - from Germany and the Netherlands to the UK and beyond - shaped distinct strains, from psychedelic sprawl to sleek, melodic uplift. Along the way he highlights key records, DJ sets and club nights, but also the quieter infrastructures: backroom engineers, artwork, distribution networks, and the technologies that enabled long blends and extended breakdowns to work their spell.

At the heart of Hypnotised is the question of what trance actually does to people. Rietveld returns repeatedly to the dancefloor itself, unpacking the genre’s relationship to euphoria, memory, repetition and time. He considers why certain chord progressions and breakdowns can feel so devastatingly emotional, how build‑ups and drops restructure the experience of a night out, and why a form so often dismissed as formulaic has remained a powerful vessel for personal and collective catharsis. Interviews and first‑hand accounts from DJs, producers and ravers are woven through the narrative, giving voice to those for whom trance was not background music but a way of life.

Spanning the genre’s golden era from roughly 1990 to 2005, the book does not shy away from the tensions and contradictions that came with success: underground roots versus stadium scale, artistry versus bombast, regional scenes versus international brands. Rietveld explores how trance interacted with parallel movements - techno, progressive house, hardcore, EDM’s rise in the 2000s - and how waves of backlash and rediscovery have continually reshaped its legacy. The result is neither hagiography nor takedown, but a nuanced, affectionate and critical portrait of a sound that has meant everything to millions, yet has often been written out of “serious” music histories.

Beautifully produced and packed with detail, Hypnotised: A Journey Through Trance Music (1990–2005) is aimed at both seasoned heads and curious newcomers. For those who lived through the era, it offers a chance to revisit forgotten tracks, scenes and nights with fresh context; for younger readers, it opens a window onto a time when towering breakdowns and endless arpeggios felt like the future. Above all, it argues that trance deserves to be understood on its own terms: as a complex, evolving art form built around one simple, radical idea - that repetition, done right, can change how we feel, think and move together.