Trance is said to have begun as an off-shoot of techno in German clubs during the early 1990s. It is also a fusion of techno and house, early trance added more melodic overtones and harder kick.

This style became instantly popular in Europe and spread very quickly. Before long, trance
was spawning sub-genres such as progressive trance, acid trance or hard trance.

(NOTE : Goa and psy-trance are arguably older, with their characteristic sounds purportedly emerging in Western Europe, Goa and Israel as far back as 1991.)

Psychedelic trance (often referred to as PsyTrance) is a form of trance music whose fast beat
is in the range 125 to 150. Popular artists within psychedelic trance include Astral Projection,
Space Tribe, Infected Mushroom, Atmos, and Cosmosis. It is mostly enjoyed in psychedelic outdoor festivals and it is truly a global phenomenon, but there is an underrepresentation of American artists at the moment and the SanTRANCEcisco compilation is a vehicle of transforming that current state.