Artist
Richard Durand
Why we feature this artist Richard Durand: a harder edge around the trance melody Weep gives Richard Durand’s production a distinctive vocal centre. Skin’s recognisable performance sits against a forceful electronic arrangement, bringing a different grain to t…
- From
- Netherlands
- Sound
- trance, vocal trance, progressive trance, tech trance
- Active
- 2000–present
Start with the music
Tracks to explore
The artist, in context
The story of Richard Durand
Why we feature this artist
Richard Durand: a harder edge around the trance melody
Weep gives Richard Durand’s production a distinctive vocal centre. Skin’s recognisable performance sits against a forceful electronic arrangement, bringing a different grain to the sound than a conventional trance vocal. It is an effective introduction to a producer whose records often balance melodic scale with a tougher rhythmic attack.
The remix route
Durand’s profile developed through original tracks and remixes, including official versions of Tiësto’s Lethal Industry, Flight 643 and Break My Fall. These were substantial source records to take on: familiar enough that a new version needed to offer more than a change of tempo.
The same period brought work on Armin van Buuren’s In and Out of Love and Art of Trance’s Madagascar. Heard together, those choices place Durand within a melodic dance tradition while leaving room for a more abrasive production personality.
The voice in Weep
Weep appeared through Perfecto in 2008, with Skin from Skunk Anansie providing the vocal. The contrast is central to the record. The singing has an individual texture that remains identifiable inside the larger electronic setting.
The extended arrangement gives a DJ room to develop that contrast: instrumental passages establish the momentum, then the vocal changes the scale of attention. The listener moves between the track as a piece of club construction and the presence of a particular singer.
Durand’s DJ career placed this music in clubs and at events including Trance Energy, Sensation and Ibiza’s Judgement Sundays. Weep captures the attraction of that setting without needing the festival context to explain it: the arrangement supplies both impact and a memorable human detail.
Essential releases
Weep
Skin’s featured vocal brings a distinctive tone to Durand’s forceful production.