Category Archives: Trance

Ten-year-old Olivia Mack walked around Calgary's WinSport Arenas in a trance this weekend after meeting one of the newest members of the Hockey Hall of Fame: Hayley Wickenheiser.

"She's my inspiration," Olivia said softly during a break from patrolling the blue line for the Red Deer Sutter Fund Chiefs at the 10th annual Canadian Tire Wickenheiser World Female Hockey Festival.

"I want to be just like her when I grow up."

Wickenheiser launched her hockey festival affectionately known as Wickfest after the 2010 Olympics with the express purposeof growing the women's game. Over the last decade, more than 30,000 players have taken part in the event designed to teach them about success in hockey and in life.

Over the last two weekends in Calgary, more than 2,500 girls and young women filed into Wickfest with sticks in hand and hockey bags slung over their shoulders.

The irony is not lost on Wickenheiser, who used to slink into the arena hoping to go unnoticed as the only girl on the team.

"These days, a little girl with a bag and stick walking into a rink is no big deal," Wickenheiser said. "Whereas when I was that little girl, heads would turn because it wasn't all that common."

Fresh off the Nov. 18Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Wickenheiser rushed home to write a medical school exam Wednesday before shuffling over to WinSport's Canada Olympic Park to nurture her passion project.

Although the Canadian Women's Hockey League is defunct and the best players in the world are boycotting the National Women's Hockey League in the U.S. Wickenheiser believes the future is bright for the women's game.

"I think the NHL has a plan moving forward," said Wickenheiser, 41. "If women's pro hockey is going to happen, it's going to have to be with NHL involvement.

"I see it as possible: four to six teams probably based in the eastern part of Canada and in the U.S., just for money and geography. And I think it'll happen. I actually think it will happen within the next year or two. So we'll see, but it's really the next way to elevate the women's game outside of the Olympics, because people need to see the women play more often."

In the meantime, she sees Wickfest as a vital tool to help nurture and develop the next generation. The festival is set to expand to Surrey, B.C., in the new year, and she hopes Halifax and Toronto will be next.

"I feel like the coaching and development for young female hockey players isn't where it should be," said Wickenheiser, who is also the assistant director of player development for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

"And it's also important to expose kids to other sports so they learn that they don't have to play hockey 12 months a year you can do a lot of other things, as well."

Georgia Simmerling, an Olympic track cyclist and ski cross racer, stopped by the Wickfest Saturday to teach the kids exactly that.

"It's good to be involved in different sports, and I'm here to talk about navigating that," Simmerling said. "And I think that's a message that's important for the parents to hear as well."

Erica Wiebe, an Olympic gold medallist in wrestling, talked to the girls and their parents about mental resilience under pressure. Team Canada hockey netminder Shannnon Szabados lectured on game-day preparation and how the mind is the biggest asset for a goalie.

Team Canada forward Natalie Spooner took the girls through a dryland session to teach them how to warm up for a game like an Olympian. And Olympic curling silver medallist Cheryl Bernard told the girls to think of their lives like a book, warning them against letting anyone else hold the pen.

"Sports gives you confidence to walk into a boardroom and apply for a job you might not know if you qualify for," said Bernard, president and CEO of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. "Promoting sport is not about getting everyone to stand on a podium or win Olympic medals. It's for values, the teamwork and the confidence that all translate to life later on."

Olivia's dad ,Graeme Mack, played minor hockey growing up, and there was one girl on his team.

"Just the one," he said. "It's very different now. Even the small towns have girls' hockey teams now.

"This whole event is phenomenal. Hayley is joining the girls on the benches. They're just in awe."

The rest is here:

Wickenheiser optimistic women's hockey will have new pro league in 2 years - CBC.ca

The path to success for Sean Tyas was a quick one. A longtime connoisseur of trance and somewhat of a hero in his hometown East Coast scene, the producer entered the global circuit in a strong way back in 2006 when his debut single Lift became an instant hit that topped the Beatport charts. Hes since remained a driving force in modern underground trance, planting his feet firmly in the tech and uplifting realms and boosting his profile with a consistent slew of international touring and performing alongside the likes of John OCallaghan, Bryan Kearney, Paul Van Dyk, Armin van Buuren, and many more. Hes the type of artist to take well-calculated, careful decisions in his career, allowing him to stay true to the sounds that inspire him while growing on his own termsand in doing so, hes set himself up for continued prosperity.

Tyas has has quite a busy 2019, undertaking one of his busiest touring years while providing fans with a variety of singles across Subculture, VII, and of course, his burgeoning Degenerate imprint. A particularly noteworthy release came in the form of his remix to the Rapid Eye classic, Circa Forever. His re-work preserved the timelesssness of the original whilst updating the instrumentation and ultimately twisting it into a modern masterpiece of his own. After months of stirring a frenzy among the trance community rinsing the then-unreleased gem, it finally became available to all in August. Now, Tyas prepares to make his trek back stateside to Californias Dreamstatea Insomniacs festival dedicated to the genre which has become Americas premier event for the sound. Hell be joining fellow icon Menno De Jong for a stimulating back-to-back on Saturday, November 23, where fans can expect a high-octane mixture of classic and contemporary tunes. Grab tickets for Dreamstate here.

We sat down with Tyas prior to his westward voyage to talk about his journey until now, remixing legends, his process, and what else is in store for the next year.

Lets dive into your artistic journey. Tell us about your decision to produce trance, and the process of finding your own sound. Did you find it easy to create something distinctively Sean Tyas from the get-go, or was your path more complicated?

That is one hell of a broad question but Ill do my best to not write a novel. I started off into the whole scene as an enthusiastic raver in NY back in the late 90s, going to parties and clubs and really loving every single moment of what happens to me when I set foot on that dancefloor each weekend. Nothing really up to that point in my life was really quite like it. Eventually, I really started to get more specific in my musical tastes and to fast forward a bit, I ended up falling deeply in love with trance. I still liked a few other styles but trance just did it for me. The power and that 136-142 BPM energy was just resonating with me and how I danced. I was in art university at the time, so I had a bit of time to start to make a bit of music as a hobby, where I could finally start to learn how it was made and what was required to do it. Unfortunately, it was a VERY expensive thing for an 18-19 year old to get into back then. Computers were not on the level they are at now, where everything could be run as software inside the machine. Id have to buy synth-after-synth , drum machine-after-drum machine, etc, just to get specific sounds. Just trial and error (a lot of errors) led to development.

What drew you to trance in the first place, and why do you think people are attracted to the genre as a whole?

I think its a genre that very heavily, in its nature, promotes togetherness on that dancefloor. The crowd at trance events know their music, know the tracks, and most likely know LOADS of other people they are on that dancefloor with. Its a beautiful community. Maybe thats why we do get newcomers to the genre too, and the music can be outright gorgeous at times, but that was be so fucking ignorant to say yea, trance is emotional so people come flock to it. I hate that phrase because its bullshit; all music is emotional to someone. Death metal is emotional and evocative to the right person. But for me and countless others, well, trance just hits the nerve and scratches that itch we need scratched. Its never something that is easy to explain, why people like a type of music, but there it ispeople love what they love.

How does living in Switzerland help or hinder your creativity? Would you ever consider moving back stateside, since the genre is beginning to have a renaissance there? Why or why not?

Its a pretty inspirational place to live I have to say. Walking and running outside in these landscapes of mountains and rolling hills is inspirational in itself, so as an artist I find it to be really conducive to the work I do. As far as moving stateside, my roots are pretty deep here at this stage, now over 14 years living here, Ive gotten dual citizenship, and my kids are already growing up so fast in the school system, I think here is where I stay. But having said that, I am REALLY lucky to work a career that allows me to get back to USA very often to constantly satisfy my homesick feelings when they pop up. Most of my family is in New York, so with JFK being the hub of almost every trip to the states for me, extra quick visits to friends and family are effortlessand I love that.

What have been your key ingredients in sustaining a longterm career, especially in a field of music with such peaks and valleys in popularity?

Peaks and valleys indeed. But it is one thick-skinned genre that is for certain. The main ingredient to sustain any long term career its really simple and obvious. Improvement, consistency, humility (by this I mean to always be working for something, because the moment you have that sense of entitlement, you are already the asshole), and health (this is one I have only really started to believe in during the recent years going to the gym much more often and really concentrating on eating better foods). Anyone else can just simply throw a monster marketing budget at their career and get all their tracks ghosted, but is that sustainable? Is it respectable? Not to me.

What are some creative or career-related roadblocks/obstacles youve had as of late, and how have you worked through them? Has your outlook on music and your career changed as a result?

The only obstacle anyone should be concerned about is self-doubt. The minute you let that all in, you are already in trouble. I need to ALWAYS believe in myself, my skill level, and believe in what Im doing. I have had disappointments all throughout my career, of course, but these just get me working harder, specifically in the studio pushing my sound, trying to experiment with techniques Ive never heard in a trance track as well as sharpen ones Ive used before to make them new and cutting-edge.

How does a day in the studio look for Sean Tyas? On account of your innate perfectionism, would you say its easier for you to bang out rough ideas quickly, and afterward you spend the vast majority of your time tinkering with them to ensure they meet your standards?

Every day is different depending on what projects are going on. For example Tuesdays are usually radio show day, so Ill spend all day going through all the promos of the prior week, sifting through and putting together the mix for the show, then doing all the voiceovers etc. On a production day, I guess the first thing i usually do in the studio each day (or every couple of days) is to reverse engineer a couple of sounds I hear in tracks that intrigue me that I hear in others productions. It can be anything from a drum with a unique aspect to it, to a brutal bassline that I want to know the approach of how it ticks. From there I can apply these techniques in new ways to to other things and it brings about a cross-pollination in the studio that really leads to new creativity for the full day.

Youve had a couple notable remixes this year; for one, your long-awaited take on Rapid Eyes Circa Forever finally came out, and you also took on John OCallaghans Choice Of The Angels.How did these come about? Tell us the backstory and what inspired you to re-work these ones.

The Circa Forever remix was nice for me because to me, like so may others, that original really symbolizes this sort of Golden Age of trance, and of course a couple years ago when I threw together my first re-work of it. By re-workas opposed to calling it a remixI mean the original track is layered into a project and I go and cut out the bass end of it completely to be replaced, while adding multiple elements onto the track and also tweaking how the arrangement flows with edits. This [re-work] was sort of my go-to classic for that time. After a while, I think Armada mentioned to me that they could release it, but I said, you know what, Im not too comfortable at how it sounds right now. To me it was just a rework, and generally, I dont LOVE the idea of releasing those. Let me turn it into a full-fledged remix, not utilizing the original track as the backbone anymore, I told them. And so yeah, that came out, and I am happy it did, because it is now much more in line with my own sound. And as for the Choice of the Angels remix, John has been a friend of mine since the Discover days, and he came to me with that single and asked if Id like to remix it for Subculture. Hell yeah, why not? I thought. It was very open to melodic reinterpretation in its original form, and this makes it so much fun to remix.

Do you ever feel pressure to adhere to a certain aesthetic in your music in order to please your fanbase? How do you balance making something fulfilling to you without alienating longtime listeners? Have you ever felt afraid to experiment with your sound further on account of this pressure?

I feel the fanbase is overcoming the monotony that we have seen in the genre over the yearsfans are finally pushing us more, and I love this. The sound is finally evolving and Ive been an obnoxious proponet to this change in the genre for years. Its finally seeing a bit of fruition now and some of these new tunes people are releasing now are really becoming on the level that we need to be. Attention to detail, attention to sound, and a bit less lazy in the generic melody department. As far as fear to experiement, never. I mean look at my album Degeneration; this was my first artist album and I wanted to really see what I could make. To say that this was a journey for me would be putting it lightly, but I got there in the end. John Askew was so supportive the whole way through, with my ideas of things like including two Drum n Bass tunes on the album as well as bits of breaks, techno, and chillout. Experimentation leads to growth and learning.

Youre about to play Dreamstateyouve played a few now, correct? What do you think festivals and events like this say at large about the USA trance community?

Its fantastic to see the popularity of the style has birthed this beautiful brand of festival, and its so encouraging to think about what the future holds for the USA trance community. These behemoth events bring new faces into the scene for their very first time, and I can only hope they truly love what they hear and see and decide they love it as much as I do.

What are you favorite parts about Dreamstate?

Well, Insomniac is just a fantastic company that really look after us as artists, from the stocked up artist dressing rooms, to the production level on that stage we play from. The light shows that accompany the sounds we bring really exponentially enhance the experience to all the people on the dancefloor and it is just an experience from beginning to end. Ive always been a sucker for a good laser show

Finally, whats in the pipeline for Sean Tyas?

I have a new single coming out in December on Deep in Thought, featuring a truly amazing seasoning of vocals from Nashville-based Shelby Merry, whose quality of vocals you truly have never heard before in a trance tune. I also have new remixes coming. The first is my new remix of Liquid Dream by Liquid Soul & DJ Dream I have done for Iboga. This is actually a complete redo/overhaul on a remix I did 2.5 years back as my Neodyne guise, but always felt I wanted it to sound different. Well now it will come in its full form. The second remix coming is one Ive just done of Bryan Kearney and Dierdre McLaughlin Open My Mind for Kearnage which Ive just started testing out now. You will hear all three of these new productions at Dreamstate for sure. After these, I have a long list of stuff to get to, but I think 2020 I would really like to focus and start putting toegther a second album that is 100% club-focused

Photo credit: Sean Tyas Artist Team

Tags: Dreamstate, exclusive, interview, Sean Tyas

Categories: Features, Music

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The fans are finally pushing us more, and I love this"Sean Tyas on the trance community, his creative ethos, and more [interview] - Dancing...

Kayleigh Clark can still feel the hot pavement that burned her skin as she kneeled over a young woman, a stranger who clung to life in the parking lot of Concords Edgewood Heights apartment complex this past July.

Using her fingers, Clark applied pressure to the womans stab wounds as a friend monitored the womans pulse. The woman was fading in and out of consciousness and unable to respond due to the severity of her injuries.

At one point, Clark recalled someone telling her to move aside because first responders had arrived. But Clark said she was in a trance, so focused on the womans survival that she didnt react until large hands, gloved in purple latex, came into her sightline.

The scene from that day is so real, so graphic in my mind. I dont know how to move past it. Theres this constant pressure on my chest, said Clark, who for three months has been haunted by flashbacks.

On the morning of July 28, a Sunday, Clark and several residents of the apartment complex rushed outside in response to screams and commotion heard in the parking lot. Witnesses told police that Nathalia Da Paixao, 35, had suffered multiple stab wounds and that her husband, Emerson Jaques Figueiredo, was standing over her body with a knife.

Prosecutors have released few details about what unfolded shortly before noon that day at Edgewood Heights. Witnesses told the Monitor that the brutal assault began in the familys apartment and then moved out onto the street.

Da Paixao, a mother of two, was rushed by ambulance to Concord Hospital where she later died.

The New Hampshire Attorney Generals office has since charged Figueiredo with alternative counts of second-degree murder in connection with Da Paixaos death. He is awaiting trial from a jail cell.

For the witnesses of that homicide, their lives are also forever changed. The U-Hauls that now seem to come and go more frequently from Edgewood Heights may be a testament to that. Clark said she and others were shaken to the core that summer day and that, for some, continuing to live at the apartment complex is too triggering. The view of the parking lot from her balcony is enough to transport her back to the scene, she said.

On that morning, Clark leaped over the wooden railing and ran several hundred yards to Da Paixao, whose son and daughter were close by. She said initially Figueiredo threatened her with the knife and tried to keep her from getting to Da Paixao.

I had never feared for my life until that moment, and I cant even begin to imagine what the family went through, Clark said. Now, to be 32 years old and afraid of your own home and the neighborhood where you live does not feel good.

The search for emotional help in the aftermath of a traumatic event can be a daunting and intimidating one for witnesses of crime in New Hampshire. While Clark is not a direct victim or a relative, she was present as the violence unfolded that day on the Heights and, consequently, she suffered severe psychological trauma. After Da Paixao was rushed to the hospital, the attorney generals office partnered with community health professionals to provide Clark and other witnesses with immediate support. However, Clark said, as the weeks and months have passed, she has been alone to navigate the system.

She is still searching for long-term support so she can begin to rebuild her life. Before the murder, Clark was working with a therapist at Riverbend who she continues to see regularly. She said her sessions in recent months have focused on new coping skills, self-care and the steps for working through her trauma. But she said she still struggles to complete basic tasks without feeling overcome by thoughts of that fatal morning on the Heights.

In the immediate aftermath of Da Paixaos murder, a mobile crisis team from Riverbend Community Mental Health in Concord responded to the neighborhood to reach out to witnesses, including Clark. CEO Peter Evers said the team was on standby to provide psychological first-aid to individuals who sought support and wanted to share their grief and shock. Professionals also handed out a leaflet that overviews common symptoms people experience after traumatic events with a 24/7 emergency psychiatric hotline number.

That same weekend, Riverbend also responded to the Crutchfield Building on Pitman Street, where authorities say a Massachusetts man fatally stabbed a Concord resident and then fled the scene in a stolen vehicle. Evers said the crisis team set up a temporary station in the buildings community room for residents many of them preexisting clients who wanted to discuss their personal experiences and seek support.

On Edgewood Heights, Clark said she and two neighbors spoke with a mental health professional who distributed informational pamphlets about common stress reactions to traumatic events. She said she wishes the crisis team would have also handed out names and numbers of trauma-care specialists who she could have contacted in the days or weeks after.

I was still in shock and my mind was just numb after the incident that nothing was registering in my head, she said.

While Clark said she appreciated the time Riverbend spent with residents, she wishes that long-term mental health services were available through the state to witnesses, who are secondary victims of a tragedy. She wants to learn from others living with a similar reality and wishes there was a support group for people in New Hampshire who have witnessed homicides.

For Clark, the images of that morning are always present. The noise in her head is similar to having the television on in the background while performing other tasks, such as cooking or cleaning, she said.

You dont really listen to it, but you hear it and you know its there.

Lynda Ruel, director of the attorney generals victim/witness assistance unit, told the Monitor that witnesses do sometimes call advocates in search of resources, including counseling and support groups available through community mental health providers. Advocates will make referrals based on an individuals expressed needs.

At this time, there is no support group in New Hampshire exclusively for people who witnessed a homicide. Ruel said she is not familiar with any other states that do either.

Unfortunately, everyone comes to these tragedies with certain unique needs and there arent always the resources in the state to meet them, she said.

This month, New Hampshire had its 30th homicide of the year a near 30-year record. The state is brushing against the modern-day peak of 34 in 1991. Some of them have unfolded in public settings, including outside the Steeplegate Mall in Concord, where on Sept. 25 a man shot and killed his longtime girlfriend and then turned the gun on himself. The crime occurred outside the Zoo Health Club shortly before 8 p.m., and multiple people, who heard gunshots, witnessed the graphic scene before first responders arrived.

And in late October, police responded to the New England Pentecostal Ministries in Pelham where a Manchester man is accused of shooting a bishop and a bride during a wedding ceremony.

Ruel said the attorney generals office quickly called upon the New Hampshire Disaster Behavioral Health Response Team because there were so many witnesses to the incident in Pelham.

The advocate on scene is trained to identify not only what the immediate needs of the victims and the families are at any given time but also the needs of the community, she said.

Diana Schryver of the Disaster Behavioral Health Response Team, founded after the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks, said approximately 800 volunteers throughout the state are trained to respond to crisis situations where local resources are not available or overwhelmed. The team, which is broken up into five regional units, responds to anything from floods to fires to mass shootings.

In incidents like the ones recently in Concord and Pelham, experts say witnesses initially experience shock and require what is commonly referred to as psychological first-aid.

Its very similar to physical first-aid in that were just trying to help people get back to a sense of normalcy, Schryver said. We tell them, Here is what you can expect following a traumatic event. If it continues beyond a certain time frame, however, you may want to seek professional help, and we can get you connected with those resources.

Asking for help has not been easy for Clark, who admitted she fears people might dismiss her story because she is not a direct victim or one of Da Paixaos relatives. She said her heart aches every day for the family and for the couples children, who were 10 and 13 at the time.

Its hard to reach out for help and to talk about it when its not something that happened to my family. I didnt lose my mom and my dad on the same day, she said. But that doesnt take away from the fact that everyone there saw something tragic that day and everyone is going to deal with this differently and in their own time.

I would give anything not to feel this way, for peace for myself and my family, she continued.

Over the summer, Clark was in between jobs and on the hunt for the next career opportunity. However, she suspended her search after the murder and has been unable to work since. She was recently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

You always hear about these things happening in big cities like Boston or New York and you think, Thats tragic and crazy. And then, it happens in your own backyard and your sense of security is shattered, she said.

I truly thought that a kid was hurt. Maybe they got hit by a car and broke a leg or needed stitches or something. I never could have fathomed this.

That morning, Clark was sitting on her bed when she heard the first scream. Her apartment is across the road from the community pool. It was summertime. Maybe a child was fooling around.

Then she saw a friend run toward the basketball court at the other end of the parking lot and she knew something wasnt right.

I just flew over the balcony. I didnt even have any shoes on, she said during a recent interview at her kitchen table.

As Clark replayed in her mind the events of that day, she paused and pursed her lips. She acknowledged that she gets tired of hearing herself talk about what happened.

Its like a broken record that wants to play through but keeps getting stuck, she said.

When Da Paixao was taken away in an ambulance, she was still alive, Clark recalled. She said she didnt learn until hours later, following her interview with a police detective, that Da Paixao had died at the hospital. That reality makes overcoming her grief far more difficult, she said.

I remember telling her, Your kids are safe now. I think she heard that, Clark said through tears.

Since July, Clark has taken to journaling, even though she sometimes rips up and throws away the pages. She said she has written the narrative of that day over and over again, hoping that one day she will do so for the final time.

I just tell myself to get through it that this feeling isnt going to last forever, she said. I take it one day at a time and just keep pushing to feel better.

Clark said her boyfriend tells her that fate put her and a friend at the scene of the crime that day not only to come to Da Paixaos aid but to help others in the future.

He says someone I know may go through something traumatic like this down the road and theyll have someone to reach out to in a way that I didnt, she said. Its hard to think, Why did I have to be that person to go through a traumatic event like this? But maybe he is right.

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Concord homicide witness struggles to move forward after tragedy on the Heights - Concord Monitor

What meditation is may differ from what has been sold to you. The more you may try various methods, the more difficulty you may have meditating at all. You may have given up, have gotten frustrated, or may now cage yourself in jail of belief that you cannot meditate at all. If this is you, keep reading.

Meditation is not about clearing your mind, and they cannot be guided. Meditation is not a trance though people may use trance states to do it. Otherworldly Imrama or Echtrae are not meditations either.

Meditation is the act of just being while turning your mind toward itself. Its turning the mind toward itself with which people have the most trouble.

Meditation is a breakage of the cycle of doing to provide a moment of non-doing and just being.

Out of the parts of the self, the interaction between the mind and body seem most interesting to meditation and right-living. The body is flat seeming structural because it has one fickle will that goes to and fro. When we feel fear, for instance, we group the flat phenomena of a certain set of physiology into a hierarchy of feelings and emotions.

The best way to meditate is to simply close your eyes and watch your internal phenomenon without trying to do anything. Close your eyes, breathe, watch your breath. Listen to the sounds, feel the pain in your feet or back. Give attention to each new phenomenon or thing that happens to you. Thats it. As simple as it sounds, it isnt easy.

The self will defend its normal existence, it doesnt want to quiet down. Itll introduce thoughts, pain, itches, make you fall asleep. The important thing is to not let the will of the body win. If you fall asleep, meditate again upon waking. If you itch, scratch it until gone and start again. Youre trying to beat your horse-mind into submission. The real trick is accepting the difficult path of winning. I have severe adult ADHD and I won against my horse-mind.

People try to play whack-a-mole with their thoughts to get them under control, but you cannot relax or focus the racing mind as required in magic and druid practice by doing more racing.

If you get caught up in your thoughts, return to watching and listening. The more of these returns you make, the more successful youll become.

The breath is the key. It sits at the crossroads between watching and doing. It is something you do, but at the same time, it is something that happens to you. Here is a seam in the self from which to start rooting deeper awareness.

When you deeply meditate, and your focus and awareness become greater and greater while doing it, your breath will control itself. There is no need to control it when youre not going after trance states. In fact, let it run out and let your body fill your lungs, do not voluntarily inhale, let it occur to you.

The breath and watching the five senses in introspection is the road to Segais.

See the rest here:

Three Secrets About Meditation that No One Told You - Patheos

Armin van Buuren has announced a special, one-off show, entitled This Is Me.

The This Is Me show will take place on Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd May 2020 at Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam.

This Is Me is set to be a very special live experience for trance fans, an amalgamation of all van Buuren's professional life brought together into one show.

On the show, Armin van Buuren says:

"Every song I make teaches me something new. Informed by years of experience as a producer, it's an honest story of venturing into known and unknown territories, finding balance in between. At this point, it's time to tell you my whole story. All of it: all of those different things that made me learn and and grow as a person. This is what I want to create, and there's no one I'd rather share my story with than all of you. I'm Armin van Buuren, and This Is Me!"

This Is Me will be produced by global dance events company ALDA, and tickets will be on sale from 23rd November. For the show, Armin van Buuren returns to Amsterdam, his homeland, where Ziggo Dome will provide the perfect space for a spellbinding production.

Listen to Armin van Buuren's new record 'Balance'.

van Buuren won the Highest Trance award in this year's DJ Mag Top 100 DJs.

Read more here:

Armin van Buuren announces brand new, one-time only live show, This Is Me - DJ Mag

LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 15: (L-R) Kimberly Friedmutter, Friedmutter Group Founder and CEO Brad ... [+] Friedmutter and Related Companies Development Manager Ron Wackrow speak during the opening celebration for The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas December 15, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images for TCOLV)

The biggest readers of self-help and business books often get the worst results.

Heres why: Human beings are notoriously bad at willing themselves into making lasting changes.

People typically buy these kinds of books to learn a formula for getting everything they want out of life. What they miss is that steps, tricks, and tools are the smallest part of personal improvement. The real challenge is altering your mental state in order to become able to easily build permanent positive habits.

Unlike many of her contemporaries, author Kimberly Friedmutter does not believe you can consciously will yourself into changing your life. In fact, Friedmuttera hypnotist whose methods have been championed by celebrities like Sharon Stone, Jennifer Hudson, Martha Stewart, Mike Tyson, and Quincy Jonesholds that the reason so many well-meaning people fail in their self-improvement efforts is because they rely too much on their conscious minds.

It was precisely to provide a counterbalance to well-meaning but largely ineffective personal improvement books that Friedmutter wrote Subconscious Power: Use Your Inner Mind to Create the Life Youve Always Wanted. In its pages, she draws from the methods she has used to help her clients achieve superior performance. To help readers get what they want, she teaches them to stop focusing on trying to tame their surface-level thoughts and to instead work on unlocking the subconscious.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Friedmutter. What follows are some key excerpts from our conversation.

Michael Schein: The central claim of your book is that hypnosis is one of the most powerful ways to use the tap into the subconscious to achieve success. How can someone take advantage of hypnosis if they dont have access to a professional hypnotist?

Kimberly Friedmutter: People think of hypnosis as this mysterious, inaccessible thing, but really, its exactly the opposite. Hypnosis happens every day all day to everybody. Every time you look at your phone and get sucked in and lose track of time, you're hypnotized. The flashing colors and images and sounds of your TV are hypnotizing you. If youre at an Adele concert and you're waving your hands wildly and she hits that note and you get goosebumps along with everybody else in the arena, thats mass hypnosis. In all these examples, you are in trance. It's very easy for us to be hypnotized. Why? Nature wired us this way. If we didnt have this trance function, wed be conscious 24/7, and wed burn out. Trance is a tool that we have built into us.

With that in mind, there are a few simple ways to harness the power of trance, which is another way of saying the subconscious. Write down your top five priorities. Five things you care about most, that you always come back to. You might say, music, laughter, work, or whatever. Those are your hypnotic triggers. Theres a reason you always come back to them. You are using them to self-hypnotize. The trick then becomes using these triggers as a starting place to becoming conscious about your unconscious, so you can take agency over your own thoughts. The idea is to literally re-hypnotize yourself to get reoriented toward your priorities. A big reason I wrote the book is to give people who may not have access to a professional hypnotist a step-by-step method for doing this.

Schein: Hypnosis has gone in and out of fashion with the scientific community over the years. What would you say to people who mistrust hypnosis?

Friedmutter: Its funnythe same people who say they dont believe in hypnosis are the ones who run immediately to the store when a commercial tells them about a limited time offer or a Black Friday sale. Every advertiser uses hypnosis. They use your subconscious to get you to take action. The question is, are you going to let people use your subconscious for their own ends or are you going to take control of it and use it for your ends?

Schein: Your book focuses a lot on how to self-hypnotize to have a more fulfilling and successful life. At the same time, Im sure a lot of readers of this articleespecially those involved in sales and marketingare curious about how you can use some of these techniques to influence others. Is that possible, and if so, how?

Friedmutter: The short answer is yes. But its not about black cloaks and swinging amulets and turning people into zombies. Its more subtle and nuanced than that. For instance, we're primally wired to follow a leader because throughout time our survival depended on having someone who was competent and powerful enough to guide us to safety. On the negative side of how this plays out today, you can look at cults. On the classical side of it, you can look at government. Even on the family side, theres often a parental figure who fulfills this role. Creating the perception of leadership is a hypnotic technique. We follow those that we are in rapport with. We follow those we aspire to be like.

Rapport is the foundation of everything I do. And to get there I use all the tricks. For example, if Im working with a man who is used to seeing women in dresses and skirts, I'm in dresses and skirts. If it's a woman who is a business woman in pantsuit, I'm in the pantsuit. Thats one small example, but it just shows how important details are in rapport building.

Schein: Is there anything about hypnosis that might surprise people and that people can use in their own quests for success?

Friedmutter: One thing thats really interesting about a skilled hypnotist is how quickly they can start to influence a client and get them to change by using strategic confusion. Anytime you break a pattern that people are used to encountering, their subconscious gets shocked and they open up to influence. This is something anyone can do. Respond to people differently than what the norm is, differently than what theyve come to expect. Its very powerful.

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The Most Important Book About Success You Probably Havent Read - Forbes

Pumarosa have long called their sound industrial spiritual, but the London bands second album takes it to a bracing new level, as they sack off the indie guitars of their 2017 debut The Witch and embrace obsidian synths. Its title might suggest despair but this is an album about overcoming, and of frontwoman Isabel Muoz-Newsome confronting desire and her sexuality following her recovery from cervical cancer. Its not bleak, its rather sensual, while musically there is a jagged line between the recent Sleater-Kinney album, its producer St Vincent and Vincents usual studio whiz, John Congleton, who is stay with me also on Devastation duties.

And so, Fall Apart and Adams Song reach for drumnbass (echoes of Pendulum; Portishead), heady trance-pop and squelchy acid on Heaven (echoes of Smalltown Boy), while Lose Control, a galloping goth-pop song and easily their best, shows theyve got the choruses if they want them (echoes of U2). For some, Pumarosas brand of brooding turbo-anguish went out with PVC trousers, but even though the tortured lyrics can feel a little cloying, Devastation is proof that its not just Trent Reznor who can play sexy machine-rave and sing about shagging.

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Pumarosa: Devastation review brooding turbo-anguish - The Guardian

Dance Generation will be hosting the event at Rainton Arena

N-trance, Fragma, K-Klass, Dave Pearce, Baby D, Livin Joy, Robin S and Rui Da Silva will be turning the venue into a huge celebration of 90s and early 00s dance anthems when they take to the stage on Saturday, December 21.

Hits people can look forward to include: Baby Ds Let Me Be Your Fantasy, Fragmas Tocas Miracle, K-Klasss Let Me Show You, Livin Joys Dreamer, N-Trances Set You Free, Robin Ss Show Me Loe and Touch Me by Rui Da Silva.

Also gracing the stage is former Radio 1 Dance Anthems DJ Dave Pearce wholl be reliving the glory days of dance.

The gig is the latest to be staged at the arena in Rainton Meadows, Houghton, after it was recently bought by Jay Johal who has pledged to give the 2,000-capacity venue a 300,000 makeover to help make it one of the region's top events facilities.

Other events lined up at the arena include Martin Kemp, part of supergroup Spandau Ballet, appearing on May 15, 2020 when hell be taking to the decks for a Back to the 80s Party.

*Dance Icons takes place at Rainton Arena from 6pm to 2am on Saturday, December 21. The event is for over 18s only. Tickets are priced 25 for general entry and are available here.

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N-trance, K-Klass and Dave Pearce to perform huge 90s dance anthems at Rainton Arena - Sunderland Echo

Hey. Im filmmaker Martin Scorsese and Ive spent my life projecting illusions that convince people to accept false realities.

If my job is to enchant, then I suppose you could say I cast little spells in the form of movies gangster ones, religious ones, period romance ones, childrens ones, comedy ones, Bob Dylan ones, most of Robert De Niros good ones and Daniel Day Lewis only bad one.

Although theyre all just make-believe, these stories I create are sometimes so powerful that they can make you completely forget about yourself, putting you in a trance for a few hours. For that little window of time, youre mine.

Thing is if you believe your mind is your own again once the sun hits your eyes outside the theatre, then pinch yourself because the fact is we are all permanently attuned to artificial constructs of reality. Powerful forces target and enslave your brain from the day you are born enchanting it with illusion, aspiration and fear to win permanent residence.

My own little spells? Simply brief flashes of respite from your polluted minds, temporarily breaking you free from the bespoke, curated perceptions of reality that are unceasingly projected by your 24-hour rolling news media. These inject the heady toxin of hierarchic subservience directly into your cerebral cortex poisoning your critical faculties into meek and submissive acceptance of your lowly place in the scheme of things.

So whether you call the BBC a public service broadcaster, the colloquial, cosy, deliberately deceptive Auntie or the genesis of MSM reality distortion, its a fact that no other media entity has sculpted an entire nations perception quite like it.

Yet, the illusion is now flickering allowing us a glimpse of the tragic decrepitude of antiquated conjurers who pull levers behind the curtain at Broadcasting House. Al Pacino could play them in the movie.

Always respect your boss

ON a surface level, my oeuvre runs pretty much the full gamut of genre, but its no big secret that every movie I ever did has the exact same underlying theme respect. If you dont show respect for your friends, for your peers and most importantly, respect for the boss who pays your wages then you pay the price. And in my movies, the wages for such sin is usually death. The BBC should take note.

Yet, I have to say Im not surprised my eyebrows always look like this to see this once mighty towncrier-with-an-ego drowning, not waving, in the age of instant communication.

In this brave new world, the public now learn from 66 million other perceptions of reality in the UK alone then countless more outside our myopic, inconsequential island. And having now shed allegiance to any self-proclaimed authoritative consensus of thought, 10% of Scots refuse to pay a licence fee presumably in retaliation for skewed coverage of their 2014 independence referendum.

Yet, the BBC need no help accelerating theirown inevitable demise, taking one step closer towards a grave they dug themselves this week. Just like Joe Pesci in Casino.

Sunday morning walk of shame

REMEMBRANCE Sunday is supposed to be the ultimate day of respect, one where we all fall silent to remember selfless sacrifice and also attempt to imagine a way forward for our toxic species without war or bloodshed. So it was certainly peculiar this was the day the BBC chose to go to war on behalf of the Conservative party.

Now, I could spend hours drawing an analogy between the next-level CGI I used to de-age De Niro in my new movie The Irishman to how the BBC shed three years off Boris by using old footage to cover his Cenotaph appearance last Sunday.

Yet, despite their valiant efforts to make Boris look like a cohesive collection of molecules instead of an amoebas recollection of an ancient half-thought on the following day'sbreakfast TV coverage of the event, the archive footage from 2016 only made him look only slightly less mad uncle in the attic than the shambling wreck who in reality stepped out too early then placed his wreath upside down.

Not only did he look like he'd just been fished out of a septic tank after a week-long crack binge, but David Byrne thought his suit was particularly ill-fitting and Worzel Gummage wants his shoes back.

I must say, however, that the BBC's technical department continually impress me the worlds greatest living director with their editing and special-effects skills. Particularly their ability to make things that dont fit the narrative disappear like magic.

For instance, any stories querying why Number 10 wont let us see the conclusion to the Russian election manipulation inquiry or the outcome of the saga concerning Boris voluptuous technical adviser. Wiped from the BBC news agenda, just like magic, like De Niros eyebags from The Irishman. They clearly got some good practice in when editing Jimmy Savile out of the TOTP2 reruns. And also making those Panorama journalists who actually exposed Savile disappear from the Beeb payroll.

Auntie not relating to anyone

NOW, before the BBC accuse me of being a clapped-out crackpot from The Bronx who has no idea how things work in the UK, let me say I understand it cant be easy to set your moral compass in a direction that is not only an arbiter of your nations psyche but also shows a non-partisan way forward.

I get it its a tough gig, especially in the digital age of online thought silos and social media herd-think. And although its true that headbangers from all types of thought-bunkeraccuse you of taking sides, dont let that fool you into thinking it means youre doing a good, balanced job. Offending everyonesimply means you appeal to no-one in this binary era.

Even the BBC Trust have hadto hold themselves to account more than a few times, on one occasion having to come clean and apologise fora Laura Kuenssberg interview where Jeremy Corbyns views on a subject as serious as mass shootings in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks were somewhat skewed in the edit. It never went as far as admitting that it simply exists to provide mass enchantment to further its own existence, but the Beeb did admit its fault on this occasion. And quite a few others.

Yet, it is still to apologise for making a star of millionaire everyman Nigel Farage and, in doing so, breaking Britain. And lets not forget ex-Ukip council candidate, Billy Mitchell Question Times favourite audience plant and so ubiquitous on the BBC that you'll soon be voting for him on Strictly.

A shortbread tin ear

UNFORTUNATELY, we cannot simply point the finger at a few London-centric media yahs for destroying the UK. A few years ago, after the BBC won the Scottish independence referendum, they were warned by the Audience Council Scotland that they should review their approach to controversial political issues in Scotland, condemning the coverages Anglified perspective.

It added that BBC Scotland focused too much on the official campaigns at the expense of the wider civic and community engagement. I always ask my actors to read between the lines of a script - and we should perhaps also apply that suggestion here.

So I guess repentance is partly why Scotland got its very own new channel. And listen, Rogue To Wrestler was hugely inspiring, Loki seems to be a good fella and old hand Martin Geissler could still charm a tale out of Tutankhamuns death mask. That documentary series The Papers was a succinct and skilled homage to European cinematicexistentialism in its unrelenting bleakness and numb ache of creeping, inevitabledoom - worthy of Bergman himself. There's also untetheredfreethinkers Limmy and Robert Florence, who both admirably subvert and ridicule the status quo under the guise of colloquial comedy.

Yet, despite possessing an inquisitive nose for investigation distinctly lacking from its London counterpart, trust in the news department is all but gone. The Seven bulletin is one of 21 programmes on the new 32m channel that have had zero viewers. But hey, Ive been there even I refused to go see Age of Innocence.

Maybe such because old memories die hard. The BBC has, of course, been caught cynically manipulating footage before and it was only thanks to Greg Philo and Glasgow University Media Unit that they were caught out, with striking miners being fully exonerated after a BBC report made it appear they were attacking police officers at Orgreave.

Dismissed as a production error at the time, this was clearly an early warning shot that the BBCs much-heralded liberalism may infact be largely self-mythologised, a form of reality distortion that attempts to fog the fact that their wilful amplification of Tory narratives isn't a recent phenomenon.

Please accept my apologies for not expounding this allegation further I only have a 1200 wordcount and don't want to mention Laura Kuenssberg again.

And finally ...

CAN we really believe any state broadcaster is liberal and benevolent if it criminalises those who choose not to pay for a service that theres no way to cancel? It's just like that goddam U2 album on my iPhone.

A fish rots from the head down, so who is actually running the show?Surely the higher echelons of thehierarchy is balanced in terms of political persuasion?Perhapswe should ignorethat the BBC Trust chairman is Chris Patten, an ex-Tory Cabinet minister, and political editor Nick Robinson also once led the Young Conservatives.

His political producer, Thea Rogers, was George Osbornes special adviser. Andrew Neil, the curiously-coiffured BBC stalwart, is also chairman of the conservative Spectator magazine.

Neils editor is Robbie Gibb, former chief of staff to Tory Francis Maude. Editorial director Kamal Ahmed came from the rather right-wing Sunday Telegraph, and was repeatedly accused of spinning government propaganda in the run-up to the Iraq war.

It works the other way too Tory politicians also rather favour the BBC as a recruitment consultancy. When crap Malcolm Tucker Andy Coulson resigned as spin doctor due to the phone hacking scandal at his former paper the News of the World, David Cameron replaced him with BBC news controller Craig Oliver. And before the Mekons son Dominic Cummings took up residence in Number 10, Boris Johnsons former comms chief was BBC political reporter Guto Harri. And after joining News International in 2012, he was replaced by BBC Westminster editor Will Walden.

Even former director general of the BBC, Greg Dyke, has accused the organisation of being part of a Westminster conspiracy to maintain the political status quo. Now, I usually frown upon guys from the inside ratting out their former business associates, but on this occasion Ill let it slide. To the right, obviously.

Follow Bill on Twitter @futureshockbb

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FUTURE SHOCK: I'm Martin Scorsese and I applaud how the BBC wound the clock back to make their big star Boris less decrepit on Remembrance Sunday -...

There's another hectic couple weeks for clubbing on the way, with Overmono, Mauro Picotto and Sasha & Digweed among the highlights.

Though November is usually thought to be a quiet month for clubbing, that certainly doesn't apply this time around. Kicking things off on November 15 are Truss and Tessela, aka cult techno duo Overmono, who are set to perform an all-night DJ set at Index. Brothers Tom and Ed Russel are the creative minds behind this really exciting collaborative project, and also the owners of the Poly Kicks label.

The pair have also enjoyed success away from Overmono, with Truss receiving acclaim for the track 'Kymin Lea' and Tessela gaining kudos for 'Rough 2'. Having pooled talents to perform as Overmono, the siblings released the Arla EP in 2016, with Arla II and III arriving the following year. 2018, meanwhile, saw the release of the Raft Living EP. Those attending the Index show can expect a sensational set of underground electronic music.

On November 16, Butch will delight the Yamamori Tengu faithful with his emotional soundscapes. The German maestro is widely celebrated for his capacity to flow between house and techno with impressive fluidity. An electro fanatic since the tender age of 12, he has never stopped refining his sound. Indeed, his dedicated approach has led him to receiving the title of Best Producer in both Groove and Raveline magazines two years running.

Elsewhere, iconic UK duo Sasha and John Digweed will take over Distict 8's Jam Park venue for the first time on November 22 & 23. The first date sold out instantly, and there's only a handful of tickets left for the second night, so best be quick if want to attend. Though Sasha & Digweed have pursued very successful individual careers since 2002, previously, their collaborative project had been central to the '90s progressive house and trance scenes. Indeed, it was a remarkable period for the pair, with their seminal 1996 mix album, Northern Exposure, being a particular highlight. Their upcoming District 8 gig marks the extremely promising collaborative return of two acclaimed masters.

On December 1, Mauro Picotto takes to the decks in Index for the very first time. With over 700 releases across his 30-year career and seven million records sold worldwide, the Italian is a bona fide electronica legend. His classic tracks 'Lizard' and 'Komodo', released in 1998 and 2000 respectively, are his most successful to date, and have been remixed countless times. 'Lizard', especially, was a pioneering club anthem, fusing trance and techno so perfectly that it created a new style.

An extremely popular remix of 'Lizard' by Cosmic Gate was released earlier this year, showing that it truly is a timeless masterpiece. Picotto also founded his own label, Alchemy in 2002 and since 2003 has run Meganite - a high-profile club party featuring the most in-demand DJs worldwide. On top of that, he also has a hugely successful Ibiza residency. An all-around icon of the techno scene, it's a given that the Picotto will put on a fantastic show in Index.

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She's Electric: Ways to ending November with a bang - hotpress.com