Around September 2000, the emerging internet started to have an influence on me. I discovered internet radio (which is still very important today) and online forums, and launched my first websites, mostly at least partly about music. It all happened within a very short span of time.

Due to rapidly increasing phone bills, broadband internet was installed in early 2001.

My taste quickly began to mature, although at first I was still mainly focused on dance. I often played groovy house, discovered by using sources like Dancenet/DanceRadioOne, Id&T Radio and those online forums. And who remembers those Hed Kandi compilations?

This was the period when I was most frantically following everything and hunting for unknown releases; often recent songs but also older ones (mostly danceable and released since +/- 1987). Back then, I used Audiogalaxy, Kazaa Lite and SoulSeek to download the tracks and burned those MP3s onto CDs.

In fact, getting broadband internet was like giving a five-year-old a huge bag of sweets. The kid will try to eat everything at once and become sick.

From 2005 onward, I became interested in other, less danceable types of music, and also in pre-late 80s stuff. I bought many ultra-cheap second hand CDs, partly releases I couldn't afford when I was younger (Turn Up The Bass, House Party, etc.) and partly CDs featuring older music.

Especially in the latter half of the 2000s and to a slightly lesser extent in the early 2010s, I was less aware of recent releases. I was tired of keeping up with everything. A certain disconnect between me and certain parts of the musical 'zeitgeist' didn't help. Notice the lack of typical EDM and (back then) trendy indie/electroclash/combinations of it in the list above. That popular, overly self-aware 'I'm so hip' vibe.

2005-2007 was messy, but at the same time the way of handling music became more relaxed. And the selection also started to sound a bit calmer. Even ambient was included. Important tracks discovered on Bluemars Cryosleep are collected in this Spotify playlist.

The French dance station Underground FG (tech house, deep house, minimal, etc.) was also an important influence, áfter my dance heydays, with its relatively subtle undertone. Some tracks can still be heard in this Spotify playlist. Some of the tracks were recent releases, back in the days.

Other important stations: KX Radio, Studio Brussel, KIF, Pro FM, PBB (that station of Laurent Garnier), a couple of 60s/70s stations and some Soma FM streams.

The FM transmitter that I had bought in early 2005, spreading the sound of the pc through home, made discovering music easier.

In any case, from this era onwards my musical preferences started to resemble what they are today. The era was short but important.

In the final years of the decade I discovered sources such as FIP, the French station Nova, DJ Lefto ('De Hop' on Studio Brussel), and others - often amateur stations hosted at Radionomy. You can still see the influences today. And I bought my first standalone internet radio.

Anyway, the dust had settled.