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 Everybody secretly loves trance – some a little less secretly than others. Dutch trance superstar FERRY CORSTEN and Rave’s SCOTT HARMS are two of the guys who are a little more open about it…
Even if you don’t like trance, you’d have to be an electronic greenhorn to not know the godfather of the modern trance movement, Ferry Corsten. His remix of Barber’s Adagio For Strings from William Orbit’s Pieces In A Modern Style spawned a music video and mainstream play in 2000, but even before that his talent was rising from Rotterdam’s underground as hits under the Gouryella, System F and Moonman guises. He’s been a consistent DJ Mag top-10 poller this decade, and is one of the most prolific producers in trance.
“My ambition has always been with production and DJing has always been second to it,” Ferry says. His newly-released artist album Twice In A Blue Moon takes away a lot of the brashness of previous effort L.E.F; this time, a paired-down drumset and more delicate touch gives listeners a better chance to enjoy the intricate melodies – a Corsten specialty.
“I’ve really been influenced by minimalistic stuff over the last year definitely. Also I’ve felt that I wanted to go a bit more melodic with the album, which is why it sounds a bit more trancey in that sense,” he says. “The drums make you focus more on the melody.”
The album is certainly a return to the familiar territory; Ferry himself admits that previous outing L.E.F “was all over the place,” and it was his brand-new daughter that inspired this album, a comparatively more sedate affair. “I guess that sort of mellowed me out a little and I was less rebellious,” he says. “This is a lot more traditional and it’s a lot more compact – I wanted to come up with an album that sounded a lot more mature.”
Of course, he hasn’t installed a rocking chair in the studio just yet – from the album’s opening gambit Shelter Me, it’s clear that he can still make stuff loud, electronic and ferocious; you’d almost mistake the track’s strange lead for a Formula 1 race if you were focusing elsewhere. He describes the idea behind it in a slightly mischievous tone: “I just wanted to do something which clashes with the track, and it’s … almost shocking when it comes in!”
Like many top-ranked artists, Ferry divides time in the studio between a weekly radio show, his Flashover record label with several imprints, and extensive DJ touring, which includes several upcoming Australian dates. Just for variety, I ask Ferry about gig mishaps, and he candidly shares with me a rare big one – a sound loss during his set at Global Gathering UK last year, before 10,000 people.
“Paul Van Dyk played before me, and his set was being recorded by BBC to be played later as the Essential Mix,” he says. “During my set, the guys from Radio 1 were disconnecting their equipment and they accidentally pulled out one of the cables for the sound.” Mixing in his headphones, Ferry was unaware of what was taking place. “I don’t use the monitors on the side, so when I’m in my headphones mixing I’m in my own little zone. So I was mixing there and I didn’t notice that the sound in the room had cut out – all of a sudden I feel someone pulling my leg,” he laughs. “So when I took my headphones off, I was like, ‘Oh, shit!’ Here I was, nodding my head to the music – pretty funny!” Well, at least we know that it happens to the best of us!
FERRY CORSTEN plays Summafieldayze at Doug Jennings Park on Saturday Jan 3, 2009, alongside Underworld, Armin Van Buuren, Eric Prydz, Calvin Harris, Digitalism, Adam Freeland and many more. TWICE IN A BLUE MOON is out now through Stomp. www.ferrycorsten.com
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