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Ferry Corsten is an influential Dutch dance music producer and DJ who rose to prominance during trance’s peak years. Corsten’s early productions set the blue print for the anthemic trance sound that drove the genre to mainstream success and spawned a generation of copycats. The UK propelled Corsten to fame in the 1990’s but by the mid 2000’s, as the UK trance scene weakened, Corsten grew his core fan base in his native Holland and on the international DJ-ing circuit. A highly prolific producer and remixer Corsten remains most closely associated with trance despite numerous forays into other dance music genres including electro. Corsten hosts his own weekly radio show ‘Corsten Count Down’.
Early Years: 1996 to 1999
Originally a gabber producer Ferry Corsten swapped the uber fast nihilism of the hardcore scene to pursue a highly melodic take on the trance sound. His first two releases (‘Don't be Afraid and ‘Galaxia’, both released under the Moonman alias) created a blur print for an anthemic big room sound that would come to dominate the trance genre.
Whilst producers like Paul van Dyk were building the pacier, more driving side to the genre, Corsten spearheaded the Dutch trance ‘invasion’ of big lead lines, symphonic breakdowns and long snare rolls. Right from the start Corsten's productions stood out from the pack and soon set the standard to which other trance producers aspired.
Corsten boasted of having hit upon the ‘secret formula’ for creating ‘uplifting’ trance tracks and during a highly prolific period between 1997 and 1999 everything that the Dutch producer touched seemed to turn to gold. During this period he produced classics such as ‘Gouryella’ (with Tiesto), ‘Carte Blanche’ (with Vincent de Moor), ‘The World’ (as Pulp Victim) and ‘Out of the Blue’ (as System F moniker). Though these tracks were all similar in style and structure they stand as the high water mark of the big Dutch trance sound. The combination of anthemic filtered lead lines, lush pads and expansive breakdowns is now tainted with cliché but in the late 1990’s the complexity and power of the melodies was both fresh and unprecedented.
Later Years: 2000 to Present
Corsten’s success and popularity continued to grow in 2000, including one of the high water marks of the Dutch trance movement: his remix of Barber’s Adagio for Strings. In the same year his Trance Nation compilation (Ministry of Sound) went platinum in the UK and he received the Silver Harp award in Holland.
It was at this time, whilst his popularity as a trance producer was at its peak that he began to move beyond the genre. His 2001 production ‘Punk’ displayed an edgier side that had started to emerge in his DJ sets: big melodic arpeggios had been replaced with a grating, dirty synth lead that owed much more to electro and house than it did trance. Tracks such as ‘Needlejuice’, ‘Rock Your Body, Rock’ and ‘Junk’ continued the trend. Corsten had by no means given up on trance though, using his System F and Gouryella guises to continue to deliver the sort of big anthems he had built his reputation upon.
Corsten's use of other aliases for the majority of his trance productions and remixes is no accident. As with others of his early trance contemporaries (such as Paul van Dyk) Corsten has been keen to distance himself from the genre. But rather than just peppering press interviews with suitably controversial statements Corsten released his own electronic music manifesto in 2006, the album ‘Loud Electronic Ferocious’, released on Flashover Recordings, the label he had set up one year earlier. Though the album retains strong trance elements, electro and house also feature strongly and there is much in the album which underlines Corsten’s aim to make music that is simply loud and electronic. He also runs club promotions under the same name.
Like Armin van Buuren, Corsten has his own globally syndicated radio show (Corsten’s Countdown) and an annual solo concert in Holland (Full on Ferry, which is in its third year in 2010).
Ferry Corsten was born in Rotterdam the Netherlands on the 4th December 1973 and trained to be an Electrical Engineer.
Early Years: 1996 to 1999
Originally a gabber producer Ferry Corsten swapped the uber fast nihilism of the hardcore scene to pursue a highly melodic take on the trance sound. His first two releases (‘Don't be Afraid and ‘Galaxia’, both released under the Moonman alias) created a blur print for an anthemic big room sound that would come to dominate the trance genre.
Whilst producers like Paul van Dyk were building the pacier, more driving side to the genre, Corsten spearheaded the Dutch trance ‘invasion’ of big lead lines, symphonic breakdowns and long snare rolls. Right from the start Corsten's productions stood out from the pack and soon set the standard to which other trance producers aspired.
Corsten boasted of having hit upon the ‘secret formula’ for creating ‘uplifting’ trance tracks and during a highly prolific period between 1997 and 1999 everything that the Dutch producer touched seemed to turn to gold. During this period he produced classics such as ‘Gouryella’ (with Tiesto), ‘Carte Blanche’ (with Vincent de Moor), ‘The World’ (as Pulp Victim) and ‘Out of the Blue’ (as System F moniker). Though these tracks were all similar in style and structure they stand as the high water mark of the big Dutch trance sound. The combination of anthemic filtered lead lines, lush pads and expansive breakdowns is now tainted with cliché but in the late 1990’s the complexity and power of the melodies was both fresh and unprecedented.
Peak Years: 2000 to Present
Corsten’s success and popularity continued to grow in 2000, including one of the high water marks of the Dutch trance movement: his remix of Barber’s Adagio for Strings. In the same year his Trance Nation compilation (Ministry of Sound) went platinum in the UK and he received the Silver Harp award in Holland.
It was at this time, whilst his popularity as a trance producer was at its peak that he began to move beyond the genre. His 2001 production ‘Punk’ displayed an edgier side that had started to emerge in his DJ sets: big melodic arpeggios had been replaced with a grating, dirty synth lead that owed much more to electro and house than it did trance. Tracks such as ‘Needlejuice’, ‘Rock Your Body, Rock’ and ‘Junk’ continued the trend. Corsten had by no means given up on trance though, using his System F and Gouryella guises to continue to deliver the sort of big anthems he had built his reputation upon.
Corsten's use of other aliases for the majority of his trance productions and remixes is no accident. As with others of his early trance contemporaries (such as Paul van Dyk) Corsten has been keen to distance himself from the genre. But rather than just peppering press interviews with suitably controversial statements Corsten released his own electronic music manifesto in 2006, the album ‘Loud Electronic Ferocious’, released on Flashover Recordings, the label he had set up one year earlier. Though the album retains strong trance elements, electro and house also feature strongly and there is much in the album which underlines Corsten’s aim to make music that is simply loud and electronic. He also runs club promotions under the same name.
Like Armin van Buuren, Corsten has his own globally syndicated radio show (Corsten’s Countdown) and an annual solo concert in Holland (Full on Ferry, which is in its third year in 2010).
Ferry Corsten was born in Rotterdam the Netherlands on the 4th December 1973 and trained to be an Electrical Engineer.