Quote Originally Posted by riddler View Post
The First Rebirth does spring to mind when I think of hardtrance, Datura tracks, El Sueno & 7th Hallucination live remixes are pretty early also, 93/4ish. Maybe some of the EYE Q/ R&S material, Jam & Spoon or Sven Vath tracks. Its a tough one, different interpretations of hard in the early days, or even which is 'trance' enough to fall into that classification.
Couldn't agree more :)

Sven Vath and specifically his producer Ralf Hildenbeutel on the Harthouse label were the early pioneers of the hard trance sound. Artists such as Resistance D and Arpeggiators pushing up the BPMs of trance to 150+

A contender for me has to be this:

YouTube - Cybordelics - Adventures of Dama

or especially this classic which at 170 BPM was the hardest trance tune of the time:

YouTube - Curare - Schneller Pfeil