199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008     8: Ferry Corsten STYLE: Electro-trance KNOWN FOR: My productions. TUNE OF 2007: Breakfast 'The Sunlight' PRODUCER OF 2007: Breakfast BREAKTHROUGH DJ OF 2008: Gareth Emery Your musical inspiration? It can be anything around me in my daily life — music that I hear, impressions that I get or the places I am visiting. Best festival on the planet? Dance Valley, Amsterdam Best bit of kit? Cubase SX. I love the way it works and it feels like home. What tune makes you cry? Scooter 'How Much Is the Fish'. That record makes me weep! Naughtiest thing you've done this year? Raking in six speeding tickets in one day, while driving my new car…  Music from Ferry Corsten Architect, pioneer, instigator - refer to him anyway you want. Ferry was unquestionably the man behind 1999's Great Dutch Trance Breakout, splitting the door wide open with 'Out Of The Blue', 'Carte Blanche' and 'Gouryella'. Probably the biggest Dutch hat-trick since Bergkamp, Crujf and Van Basten, it created both a dance music legend and an instant legacy for Corsten. Ferry now has over 200 releases on his discography, stretching back to 1991, as well as a list of production monikers as long as your arm, ranging from the well-known System F to purpose-suiting one-offs like Eon. Following the release of his debut longplayer 'Right of Way' in 2004 and its follow-up 'L.E.F' last year, Ferry has been quiet on the album tip this year. However, he predicts his next longplayer will be out "late next year". In between artist albums, it's his 'Passport' compilation series that has been holding the fans' attention. After opening the batting in 2005 with 'Passport: The Netherlands', this year it was the United States that inspired its follow up. Production has largely been relegated in favour of DJing over the last 12 months and Ferry's been keeping the remixing to a minimum too. Admirably, he's resisted the lucrative temptation to pump out single after single from 'L.E.F'. The only two to emerge - 'Beautiful' and 'Forever' - took a unique approach. They both came out on separate labels on the same day and shared the same chorus. "I was working on 'Beautiful' and I needed a short vocal," recalls Ferry. "In the meantime, I was experimenting with this new little toy I have in my studio that makes it possible to do very weird things with vocals. I was playing around with the vocals of 'Forever' and it sounded exactly like what I was looking for to put in 'Beautiful'. Since it was such a different track all together, I decided to give it a different title!" During the summer Ferry refreshed a traditional concept for his new (and surprisingly first) radio show. "I've called it 'Corsten's Countdown,'" he tells DJmag. "It's a weekly chart show where I present new tracks and allow listeners to vote for the favourite. During the last show of every month I will play the final 'Corsten's Countdown' - the Top 10 most voted for tracks." And he's also happy with the output on his twin labels Flashover and Aleph. "It's been a great year for the labels so far," he grins. "We have had a couple of amazing releases that have seen a lot of support from all the big guys. It's great to see that new talent is coming through our labels and is getting noticed." According to Ferry, he jokes that this year's festival season will be remembered as "mostly extremely wet and muddy". "Actually, the festivals weren't all like that," he adds. "I was at the Sunrise festival, in Poland, during the summer and they had the most amazing production work I've ever seen at a festival. I also did the closing set at a festival in Melbourne, Australia, in March. It was in an amphitheatre so I had about 25,000 people looking down at me and screaming at the top of their lungs." Reflecting on his season in Ibiza for Cream, he adds: "It was a rocky start with the closing of Amnesia at the beginning of the summer - everybody knows that wasn't perfect. But once we were clear of that it turned into yet another amazing season." Corsten is now just 12 short months away from notching up 10 unbroken years in our Top 100 DJs poll. Another milestone for the man, then. Words: Tim Stark