I, for one, ran a little trance netlabel with Phace. It was called Azure. Phace and I had made a song together (well, I had made a song and he had produced it so it sounded more contemporary), and that was our first release. We honestly felt it was good enough to start a small label off. And in a way, it was. Not that trance was a terribly popular genre in our usual circles, but we were undeniably good at tracking, and we were releasing quite a bit of music, so there were some people who liked the whole thing. Azure did not survive very long, unfortunately. Somehow, after 19 or so releases, nothing happened any more. Still, I'm really glad we did the whole netlabel thing, and it really helped my find my musical voice. 2000 was a productive year for me.

This one is the song that started it all. I sent an early draft to Phace, who was looking for cooperation partners, and it immediately clicked with him. He came back a couple of days later with a rework that simply floored me, and after some very small changes we had a ready product:

Download Wayfinder & Phace - Hymn (Trance, 4:51, 4.4mb)

I quickly followed it with another release. This is the song that scored me my first fan mail from one of my personal heroes (no, I'm not going to name him : ) ). Don't mind the spelling mistake.

Download Wayfinder - Live Is Fatal (Trance, 5:01, 5.7mb)

The next song I released for Azure was a remix of an unreleased tune by one of the most high profile people in the scene, keith303, who I met on IRC. Not much of the original remained, and in fact I made up a whole new main section.

Download Wayfinder & Keith303 - Inside My Darkbelly Remix (Trance, 5:39, 6.0mb)

The tune that came after this is one that I still think has one of the better melodies I've written over the years. Simple, but straight to the point. I recently heard it played at a higher pitch than the original, and it took the fucking roof off.

Download Wayfinder - Release Me (Trance, 8:01, 10,0mb)

On Easter 2000, I brought two songs to Mekka/Symposium and finally, finally won a demo party for the first time. Morning Light took the Tracking Compo and Record Royale came in third in the mp3 compo. I released them both as an EP on Azure:

Download Morning Light (Trance, 4:08, 4.7mb)
Download Record Royale (Short Version) (Trance, 4:23, 5.1mb)

By then, I think I had hit my stride. Over the rest of the year, I released four more song on Azure that I still like very much. Three of them were part of the Race Cycle, which I did not complete until the end of 2001. K2, the first part of the cycle, is one of the first tracks I made in which I really managed to tell a story, musically.

Download Wayfinder - K2 (The Race Part I) (Trance, 4:16, 4.9mb)

I decided to remix Hymn, the first Azure release, using some harder beats and for some reason, cars revving. It's not them that make the track so driving though ; )

Download Wayfinder & Phace - Hymn (Wayfinder Remix) (Trance, 9:25, 11,0mb)

The 15th Azure release, and my eighth, was the third part of the Race Cycle ("Where is The Race Part II?" is one of the questions that I was asked most often over the next year or so). Looking Back though became my favourite Azure release (at least of my own material) and has stayed one of my favourite productions since. If you only get one track from this post, make it this one.

Download Wayfinder - Looking Back (The Race Part III) (Trance, 4:16, 4.9mb)

I had one more in me, and for some reason it went on to become a favourite on Nectarine when it got started. I'm not complaining : )

Download Wayfinder - Resurrection (The Race Part IV) (Trance, 8:09, 9.3mb)

I hope you enjoy the music as much as I enjoyed making it!