BBE

B.B.E., also known as BBE, is an Italian-French trance project whose music helped shape the sound of the 1990s. The three letters stand for the first names of producers Bruno Sanchioni, Bruno Quartier and Emmanuel Top.

In the middle of the decade, the three came together in France for an instrumental project initially influenced by the sound of Robert Miles. Sanchioni had already made trance history with Age of Love, while the three musicians knew each other through their work on early techno tracks. Quartier left the project after the first single, leaving Sanchioni and Top to continue as a duo.

B.B.E. broke through in 1996 with "Seven Days and One Week": the track first took off in the Balearic Islands before conquering clubs and charts across Europe. In Germany, the single reached the Top 10 and earned a gold record. "Flash" also became a hit in early 1997, while "Games", the project's only album, followed a year later.

The appeal lies in a sound that sits between melodic trance and more driving hard-trance sounds, and remains closely associated with the club culture of those years. B.B.E.'s classics are now being reissued by Armada Records, reaching another generation of dance fans.