As hot as the trance music scene may seem right now, the electronica sub-genre itself is about "five years behind" where it should be, according to Marcus C. Maichel.

DJ Marcus should know. The 34-year-old German has been around for just about all of the music form's barely teenage years.

Co-founder of X Dream (with Jan Mueller) and member-collaborator with several trance projects, including The Delta (with fellow producers Arne Shaffhausen and Wayan Raabe), Marcus has achieved amazing things as a DJ, in live acts and as producer, not only in trance but also in techno and, yes, even hip-hop. That was back in the late 1980s.

And he has been in near-constant acceleration.

So it's a little surprising, given his statement, that the last two releases that he's been connected with -- The Delta's "Send In . . . Send Back" at the end of last year and X Dream's "Irritant" in April -- seem so not 2007, where we are supposed to be, but more 2002.

In an interview right after the April 19 release of "Irritant," Marcus was candid in pointing out that every track on the "new" CD was at least 2 years old, with some as old as 4. He alluded to some contract difficulties with British record label Blue Room Released as a cause of the age factor.

"Irritant" is an excellent album. It's a solid collection of some of Rough & Rush's best work. It just doesn't live up to Marcus' statement.

"Send In . . . Send Back," on the other hand, has taken an unfair beating for being atonal and heavy, lacking the noise and diversity we enjoyed in The Delta's first album, "Scizoeffective" (June 2000). But "Send In . . . Send Back" is a much deeper ride and requires a dedication that most people weren't ready for last winter. The crowd wanted to break out of the gray funk that was 2001, and when they didn't get that on first play, they put "Send In . . . Send Back" back on the shelf.

Anticipation has thus been building ahead of the new Delta CD, "The Delta Force," a compilation that includes tracks from Der Interpret, Authentic, Spirallianz and Midimiliz (both acts are Shaffhausen and Raabe), X Dream and G4. The two best cuts from "Send In . . ." -- the title track remixed and "Standby" -- are back, and they sound world's better among this more melodic collection.

The Delta's strengths, however, are blinding in their live shows, and "The Delta Force" will be launched Saturday at Ebisu Garden Hall by way of a feat that has never been done before in trance -- a specially created live show in surround sound.

According to Tania Miller of Tokyo-based organizer Vision Quest (www.visionquest-tokyo.com), the massive Ebisu hall is probably the only venue around suited for this type of undertaking: Its ceiling is unobstructed and of a uniform height, and there is enough space to accommodate a large party with a stage in the middle of the floor.

"This really is Marcus' dream," said Miller, explaining that every sound element of each track planned for the special live set had to be specially reformatted in Quattro 4.2 surround to match the hall's acoustics. Complementing the four large stacks of JBL speakers hung from the ceiling in each corner will be three large graphics screens. (VJs for the event will be Tokyo X-Ray and Mook-1.) "This is a one-time creation of this specific set for this specific room, and it's a gigantic step forward in trance event productions," Miller said.

Saturday's party is only the first stage of an evolutionary plan that will shake the very foundations of the indoor party scene. It's a test, but one meticulously planned by a driven genius. Perhaps a year from now (?), when it reaches it's final form, the "Matrix" party will feature surround sound that is synchronized with a full-surround graphics display. (Goose-bumps, every time I think about that!)

But what's really gonna' bake your cookie later is when you try to answer the question, "Then, what next?" You've got to believe that Marcus is already thinking it up.

The S.U.N. Project also rises

2002 has seen two notable trance acts launch releases with major record labels: Domino (www.dj-domino.com) with "Moon" on Universal and now S.U.N. Project's (www.sun-project.de) "Sexperimental" on the EMI banner. S.U.N. Project was in Japan last week for a launch party and packed shows in Osaka and Tokyo organized by Arcadia (www.arcadia-music.net). If you missed it, fear not: they are coming back next month for the Aug. 9-11 Summer Arcade 2002 at Mount Fuji. We'll feature S.U.N. Project in the next installment.

Tale of "The Second Room"

The name of this column, "The Second Room," is taken from an X Dream classic that if not by sheer luck, would never have seen more than its first blacklight of night.

According to Marcus, when he and Jan first played "The Second Room" at a party in Germany back in about the mid-90s, the crowd reaction was so utterly bad that they took it back to their studio in Hamburg and buried it.

"When we played it, everybody was leaving the dance floor. So we thought 'It's a horrible track.' So we put it somewhere where we wouldn't find it again."

Fortunately, German DJ Axel came into their studio after a while looking for new tracks -- whatever they had. Despite any misgivings, DJ Axel took a copy. The club crowds went crazy and "The Second Room" became a smash that helped turn trance on its head. "All of a sudden," Marcus said, "it was different."