Treavor Moontribe selects the Top 10 milestone releases in the evolution of Dreaming Awake

Treavor Moontribe co-founded the Los Angeles-based "Moontribe Collective" and its iconic full moon desert gatherings. Since 1993, these events have been integral to Southern California's underground electronic music scene and continue to this day. Through these gatherings, Treavor established himself as a prominent DJ in LA, leading to performances worldwide, including Brazil, Japan, Morocco, Australia, Portugal, Germany, and across North America. His DJ sets are distinguished by their diversity, reflecting his broad musical tastes spanning multiple genres. Over the years, Treavor has also gained recognition as a music producer, releasing work under various project names. His most notable collaboration is Desert Dwellers, a project with partner Amani Friend. Recently, Treavor launched a solo venture called PheuZen, exploring more abstract forms of electronica and bass music.

Beyond music production and DJing, Treavor has also been deeply embedded in the music business itself. From 2005 to 2012 he was the Director of Dance/Electronic at INgrooves Music Distribution, starting with the company when they had less than 15 employees and leaving when there were well over 100. He also co-founded the record label Desert Trax with his fellow Desert Dweller, Amani Friend. Their label helped launch the careers of several prominent names in the downtempo/chill out music scene and has over 150 releases to date. In 2019, Treavor left Desert Trax to start up two new labels of his own called Dreaming Awake and Alien Breakdance, both focused on more uptempo music styles.

Currently living in Guatemala and coming out of a global pandemic that drastically changed the trajectory of his music career, Treavor has a renewed focus on DJing and music production, and of life itself! While Desert Dwellers is touring less frequently, Treavor has shifted his focus over to his solo projects, DJing, his record labels and getting back into event production. One thing is certain, Treavor’s love and passion for music is as strong as ever!

With 2024 being one of Treavor's most creative and prolific stretches to date, he now closes out the year with multi instrumentalist Evan Hatfield. The duo combine their extensive forces to present 'Superluminal', a ten minute deep psychedelic journey coming courtesy of Treavor's Dreaming Awake imprint. In celebration of the release, Treavor has selected his Top 10 milestone releases in the evolution of Dreaming Awake. Enjoy!

1 - Diamandy - Elegant Sadness (Stan Kolev Remix)

This remix was on the 2nd release on Dreaming Awake and it went top 10 in Progressive House on Beatport. As a new label it's not easy to convince big names in any genre to do a remix for you, but Stan Kolev heard something special in the original track and gave it a go! I was beyond stoked to have him on the label as at the time he was on FIRE, hitting Beatport's top 10 in Prog House regularly. He delivered a beast of a remix that I still play from time to time, and it was such a massive honor to see such an early track on my new label hit that top 10! The melody lead in this track is timeless in my opinion and I've even started to think about getting some new remixes of it done!

2 - Lemon Blue & Onyay Pheori - Morning Station

This is the label's 8th release and I just think the track is beautiful! Before finding the remixers for this I actually sent it to Sasha trying to get him to do a remix, and he really loved the track, but I couldn't afford him!!! Although all the remixes came out great and were by incredible artists Matan Caspi, Pole Folder and Yours Truly, it's still the original version that really gets me feeling the feels! Onyay Pheori is an incredible singer and songwriter who I've worked with many times over the years. When Lemon Blue first sent me the rough version of the track I knew right away it needed vocals and more importantly it needed Onyay! These two combined for a really special and very unique track, and I just wish that more people had caught onto this one, and still have hope for some smart and savvy music supervisor to discover it and put it in a big movie where it belongs!

3 - Extrawelt - Gazelle Flip (720 Version)

Extrawelt has been an artist I've been enamoured with for many many years, who's music is so trippy, so quirky and just super frickin awesome! So when they were open to the idea of working with my label early on I was so ecstatic! They first did a remix for me and then I managed to wrangle a super sweet original from them called Gazelle Flip! I even then got another extraordinary producer Sebastian Mullart to remix it! In the end it's the Electro Breaks 720 Version they did that really blew my mind! I'm a huge fan of Electro and even run another label called Alien Breakdance that is exclusively Electro Breaks music, so it's no surprise to anyone who knows me that this is the version that got my blood flowing. We also got a super cool music video made by the artist who did the cover, Daniel Petho aka nonzeroexitcode.

4 - Desert Dwellers - Breath (Re-Imagined Vol 3)

Desert Dwellers is my main music project and even though releasing this remix album was obviously an inside job, we could have easily signed this off to a much bigger label. With remixes by the likes of Djuma Soundsystem, D-Nox & K.A.L.I.L., Jamie Stevens, Uone and Yuli Fershtat this is a monster release! Jamie Stevens remix reached all the way to #2 on Beatport's organic house chart and hung around in that top 10 for more than a month! It also laid the groundwork for many more collaborations with Jamie, Uone and D-Nox as well as future releases from Desert Dwellers on the label. The original Breath album had several top 10 Electronica tracks on Beatport which is where Downtempo Organic House existed at that time.

5 - Jamie Stevens & Treavor Moontribe - Pandemic Poem (Feat. Jonny Jenkins)

It's hard to put into words how important Jamie Stevens has been for Dreaming Awake. He is by far the top selling artist on the label and his willingness to work with me has been invaluable! To this day though, it's this track Pandemic Poem that is our seminal masterpiece. It's based around a poem my friend Jonny Jenkins wrote that I heard him recite at a small gathering in the Colorado mountains the summer of 2020 in the midst of full on Covid lockdowns. I knew instantly this poem needed to be made into a song and honestly, without Jamie being into doing this track with me, I just don't think it would have ever turned into the special treat of musical magic that it is, in my humble opinion! It's such a special tune that the incredible artists D-Nox & Beckers, Unders & Noraj Cue and Pezzner all agreed to remix it, each delivering a truly special rendition of the track! We even managed to get cover artwork by the prolific and world famous Android Jones for this one too!

6 - Jamie Stevens - Dante

Ok back to Jamie Stevens! He's done so much for Dreaming Awake but this is definitely my favorite original of his that I've been fortunate enough to release. I've always told Jamie that there's no real rules when doing music for me and stepping outside the box is encouraged. Dante is one of those tunes, it's somewhere between trippy house, prog house, tech house...it's just it's own thing and that's what I love about it. We didn't even really know what genre to list it under on Beatport. Luckily DJs all over the world found it and it was a top 10 Progressive House hype track for easily over a month. Even the legendary DJ Doc Martin was all over this one after hearing me play it and that dude is really picky about what he plays! The remixes by Noraj Cue and Weekend Heroes were also splendid additions to this release!

7 - Weekend Heroes - Delta (Gai Barone Remix)

As a label I am constantly trying to work with new well known artists that are inspiring me at the moment. Gai Barone has been skyrocketing in popularity in the Progressive House world over the past few years and I've really enjoyed a lot of his music. Luckily for me he was super open to working with Dreaming Awake and he delivered a masterful remix of Weekend Heroes track "Delta" which went to the top of Beatport's Prog House Hype chart and even dipped into the overall top 10 for a bit. This may be the top selling track on my label over the past year, but I'd need to dive deeper into the actual numbers to confirm that, but it's definitely top 3! I love how Gai used the major scale to turn this track into something really uplifting and beautiful as he is such a master of doing. This track is a real gem, a perfect set closer or sunrise beauty!

8 - Sarkis Mikael - Stay (Feat. St Terrible & Wend)

This track is a timeless masterpiece, plain and simple! I believe that in 10 years from now it can be played and give the same goosebumps it gives upon first listening to it! I started working with Sarkis Mikael as a mix engineer early in 2024 and we instantly clicked! I spent a day in his amazing sounding studio in LA playing each other different music we'd made and he wanted to get my opinion on some different sounding music he'd done with vocals. When he played me "Stay" I was blown away! The vocals sound like Radiohead, but in their own unique way and the music itself is so well done that I was ready to get on my knees and beg to release it on Dreaming Awake. Thankfully I didn't need to go there, but I can say without a doubt that this track is one of the best I've had the opportunity to present to the world. It's gotten support from so many Djs all over the world and it's so good that we even managed to bring on the amazing producers Cioz and Mass Digital to remix it! Both nailed it so hard, but for me the original is the gem of all gems!

9 - Pole Folder - Jaipur

Anyone who is old like me and has been DJing forever, and played early Progressive House on vinyl knows that Pole Folder is one of the absolute best in the biz! His early tracks on Bedrock were some of the most prolific ever so getting to work with him has really been a supreme honor and pleasure. His track "Jaipur" is such a gorgeous tune with it's deeply rich melodic vibe, it's like the ultimate sunrise or morning track! If I know people are in the right state of mind, it's a track I'm always gonna bust out! I love his long drawn out bass lines and how he takes his time getting to the point in his tracks. Jamie Stevens also delivered an incredible remix on this one and I think it's one of the better releases on Dreaming Awake! I've got a new remix by Pole Folder coming up in a few months that Hernan Cattanaeo has already posted videos of himself playing!

10 - Grace In Space - Oasis feat. Gordeeva (Treavor Moontribe Remix)

Grace In Space is a young Russian producer I kind of accidentally discovered when digging for music on Beatport. I found one super cool track and went to his artist page where I discovered a ton of super psychedelic different sounding music, what I would consider Acid House, but not meaning 303's, just meaning truly psychedelic house music. So I decided to reach out to him and see if I could bring him on to the label. He was very open about the idea and decided to make something special for me. He delivered his track "Oasis feat. Gordeeva" and it was right in line with what I was expecting from him. A deep and strange journey that doesn't fit any typical format and is definitely outside the box, just how I like it! I decided to give a go at remixing it myself and am really happy with how it turned out. I went with a deeper tribal vibe on it, being patient with it's build before dropping a pretty random bass line that doesn't repeat a consistent pattern. When we were having a serious party day at this past years Burning Man and I dropped it is when I truly realized that this one came out pretty darn good!

'Superluminal' is available now via Dreaming Awake: https://tinyurl.com/bd92xvs7