End of year mix for Afterhours.fm. Featuring some of my favourite records of 2024 from progressive and melodic to prog trance. Hope you enjoy it and have a fantastic 2025! <3

Orkidea - End Of Year Mix 2024

I got involved in EDM and deejay in the late 90s thanks to a friend of mine that bought a pair of Gemini turntables and some 90s Italo-Dance vinyl that we was listening in local disco.

From that point my own equipment evolved from Virtual Turntables 1.8 to Stanton ST90 passing by a pair of Pioneer CDJ 100 and my musical tastes quickly evolved from Italo-Dance music to Trance music, thanks to the Internet and the great community Tranceaddict.com.

In the 2006 I stopped to deejay and I sold my equipment but in the 2014 I started to slowly re-enter and I (finally) started to play and enjoy some good electronic music again.

I love instrumental uplifting and euphoric trance but I don't dislike to put in my sets some more deep and grovy progressive / techish tracks and some catchy vocals tunes.

DJ Producer - Live Performer
Trance, progressive, progressive house, house

One of Scandinavia's leading DJs, producer, promoter, head of music at YleX, father and a music lover. 

Bookings: paula@silverlining.agency

Orkidea has been one of Scandinavia’s leading DJs since the early 90s. He is best known for his unique blend of trance and progressive: credible and firmly rooted in the underground origins of trance. His music has been supported by a wide variety of DJs from the ultimate taste makers such as Pete Tong and Sasha to stadium filling titans Armin van Buuren and Tiesto. All artists that he has enjoyed sharing the stage with too.

Tapio Hakanen aka Orkidea has released four full length albums for Black Hole, AVA and Universal Music. He is best known for classics such as Unity, YearZero and Nana and timeless remixes of Way Out West’s Killa, Aalto’s Rush and Tiesto’s Flight 643. Lately he has been one of the key creative forces in Solarstone’s Pure Trance movement and has had the pleasure of mixing the first compilation, releasing on the label and performing at their high profile events around the globe. Orkidea is also a member of the critically acclaimed VII DJ collective.

Throughout his career, Orkidea has been voted seven times as #1 DJ in Finland and two times the most popular DJ in Scandinavia and made it to the DJ Mag Top 200 and Tranceaddict Top 100 lists. He has had 32 Beatport Top 100 tracks, one iTunes #1 album, a Finnish singles chart #1 and a Beatport Trance #1 single under his belt alongside over 30 million plays in YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify.

Since his first gigs at illegal squat house underground raves in 1992, Orkidea has played over 2000 gigs around the world at legendary venues such as Ministry of Sound in London, Cafe del Mar in Ibiza, Tresor in Berlin, Pacha in Buenos Aires and Avalon in Los Angeles, as well as some of world’s most prestigious events including Dreamstate USA, Luminosity, Transmission and Amsterdam ADE.

Between his peers, he is known as being driven by his constant need to evolve and create. Something he fulfills by uniting, supporting and inspiring the people and movements he is passionate about. Dedication to the scene and ethos of “Forward Forever, Backwards Never” has kept Orkidea moving and progressing for over 25 years and it’s still what keeps him as relevant and credible as ever.