BT — Flaming June

Brian Transeau's Flaming June is the record that convinced serious critics that trance could hold a note-for-note conversation with contemporary classical music. Named after Frederic Leighton's 1895 painting, released on Paul Oakenfold's Perfecto in 1997, and structured around a lead line that spends seven minutes climbing without ever quite resolving, it is the specific record most cited as the bridge between classic progressive trance and the more expansive orchestral / cinematic work Transeau himself would go on to make.

Transeau was 25, based in Washington DC, and had just released his debut album Ima on Perfecto in 1996. Flaming June was written in a single sitting in April 1997 at his home studio, apparently after seeing a reproduction of the Leighton painting in a book his mother had left at his flat. The demo was played to Paul Oakenfold at a Perfecto office visit in May; Oakenfold signed it immediately and cut a Perfecto Presents… edit for his own DJ sets before the commercial 12-inch pressed.

135 BPM, B minor, built on a Korg Wavestation arpeggio layered with an Access Virus A saw and a sampled string patch from the Emu Proteus. The record's signature move is its refusal to drop the kick back in a standard way after the breakdown — instead the arrangement rebuilds gradually over sixteen bars, with the kick sneaking back at half volume before finally arriving in full. Transeau has said the mix decision was 'the whole point of the record — I wanted the return to be earned, not announced.'

Reached #24 on the UK Singles Chart in October 1997; #1 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart for two weeks. Voted #4 Dance Record of 1997 by Muzik magazine. Sasha, Digweed and Oakenfold all cued it as a peak-time record for the next three years; it was the closing track on Sasha's Global Underground 013: Ibiza in 1999.

• UK Singles Chart#24
• US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play#1
• Muzik Records Of The Year 1997#4

• 1:15The arpeggio enters — Wavestation layered with Virus A saw.
• 4:20Full breakdown to strings and pad only.
• 5:40The gradual rebuild — kick returns at half volume before doubling.

• Original 12-inch (1997)

  BT's own version on Perfecto; the canonical mix.

• Sasha's Fire Mix

  The 10-minute progressive-house reinterpretation on the same 12-inch.

• Paul Oakenfold Perfecto Edit

  Radio-friendly cut for Oakenfold's Perfecto Presents… sets.

• BT's Solar Plexus Mix (1998)

  Transeau's own peak-time rework for the US market.

Flaming June is the record that gave BT a career beyond dance music. Its cinematic ambitions opened the door to his Hollywood scoring work (Fast And The Furious, Monster) and his 2006 orchestral album This Binary Universe. Within trance itself the record's specific arrangement move — the rebuild rather than the drop — was widely copied by Sasha (on Xpander), Chicane and later Above & Beyond. Sasha's own PMT remix on the 12-inch is regarded as one of his three best productions of the 1990s.

• The record is named after Frederic Leighton's 1895 oil painting, currently held at the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico.
• Transeau wrote the whole arrangement in one afternoon and has said in interviews he considers it the fastest he has ever finished a serious record.
• The Sasha PMT remix on the B-side of the 12-inch was one of the first records Sasha ever mixed on Pro Tools rather than to tape.