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.