Named after the Ibiza sunset bar where clubbers went to decompress, "Café del Mar" was written in 1993 by two Cologne producers — Kid Paul and Cosmic Baby, working together as Energy 52 — and released on Frankfurt's Eye Q imprint. The B-side melody they came up with that year has a fair claim to being the single most beloved motif in trance history.
Its strange fate was to keep being reborn. The 1997 Three 'N One remix — the version embedded above, and the one that cracked the UK Top 40 — is the definitive club reading, all patient menace until that lead line finally blooms. The track has been re-released and remixed so many times across three decades that it functions as a time-lapse of the genre itself: every era of trance has felt compelled to reinterpret it, and none has improved on the melody. When polls ask DJs and dancefloors for the greatest dance record ever made, "Café del Mar" is perennially at or near the top.
Why it endures is no mystery once the breakdown hits. Most anthems ask you to feel euphoric. This one simply sounds like the feeling of watching a sun go down with a few hundred strangers you briefly love. Essential in every form it takes.