Gareth Emery ft. Lucy Saunders – Sanctuary, 2010

Trance emerged as a form of electronic dance music around 1990, with the advent of music that was essentially techno or house, but had simplified percussion, extreme repetition, and other hypnotic effects such as sustained chords and long echoes. In trance's early years (1990-1992), it wasn't always clear whether a track was just "trancey" techno (or even beat-laden "ambient" or "deep" house), or was actually an example of what would later be called simply "trance". Consequently, such music might be tagged as (for example) both Trance and Techno. Example artists in this category and time period include The Shamen, Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia, The Irresistible Force, and Speedy J. From the New Beat scene, Age of Love's 1990 self-titled hit single is sometimes pointed to as the earliest "pure" trance track.

Similarly, some tracks from the Acid House era,

(Gareth Thomas Rhys Emery, older brother of singer-songwriter Roxanne Emery) is a Trance DJ & producer from Southampton, England, UK. In 2009 he launched his own label Garuda after previously operating Five AM.