In 1999 he also played in a 12-hour set, being his longest lasting concert in Amsterdam. Since November 1999 he performed monthly as a resident in Gatecrasher at Leeds, one of the most popular clubs in England. To highlight the importance in the expansion of the trance environment at the time, there were 20 different CD releases of the 4 Gouryella tracks from 9 different labels. In 1999, Tiësto joined forces with fellow Dutch deejay Ferry Corsten to create the trance based duo of Gouryella. During this period, DJ Tiësto had been releasing the Magik series, which has had seven instalments starting in 1997 and ending in 2001, after this Tiësto began releasing the In Search of Sunrise series, that is a compilation of Tiësto’s mixes with tracks from other DJs. Black Hole Recordings and its sub-label Magik Muzik continue to sign Tiësto’s vision of trance – producing musicians and DJs such as Cor Fijneman, Ton TB, Mark Norman and Joe Cheang.
Tiësto describes his Magik series as part of his breakthrough, but since the labels only want their own songs in the deejay mixes, in 1997 he and Arny Bink co-founded Black Hole Recordings to support his work releasing a series of singles under various aliases. In the mid-1990s, he started to produce trance, which led to his breakthrough in 1995 when he started building mixed compilations, something nobody else did at that time. Tiësto released his first of five mix CDs as a part of the label’s Forbidden Paradise series. He was discovered by the general manager of Rotterdam-based Basic Beat Recordings. Before the release of her album there were already dancemixes like “Vogue” which was one of the songs of Spock. In the beginning of his career as DJ he mostly played new beat and acid house, and many Madonna songs because her music shows that she likes to dance. However, it was at The Spock (closed in 2008), a small club in Breda that was embedded in the Graanbeurs nightclub, where he was able to fine-tune his own style by playing in a separate room from 10 p.m. During these years, he produced hardcore/gabber tracks under aliases such as Da Joker and DJ Limited. When he was twenty he decided to dedicate more time to it and began DJing professionally at school parties and then moved on to become a resident DJ between 19 at several clubs in the Netherlands after his manager and friend Wilfred encouraged him. Tijs Verwest had an interest for music since the age of twelve. Tiesto Biography Life and musical career 1985–2000: Early years