Ferry Corsten returns as FERR with a delicate & ambient long player

Known for pioneering and evolving the sound and style of trance from the early 1990 tlil now, Ferry Corsten is considered as a respected verteran in his music field. Today in 2020, he has become far more experimental with his approach, venturing a bit deeper into progressive house, soundscapes and cinematic scores (check out Yum Cha Chats with Ferry Corsten).

His new album ‘As Above So Below’ is geared towards the more cinematic and ambient realm, which took a lot of influence from his love for cinematic soundtracks, nature and orchestral elements. For example, bringing on board fellow Dutchman and young classical composer Geronimo Snijtsheuvel for the track ‘Dark Water’, brought out a subtle yet dramatic layer of violin strings over the melodic and synth-driven ambient background.

Most of the album is soft, melodic and beatless, taking Ferry’s long-time listeners to a brand new audio space that is rebranded as FERR by Ferry Corsten. While sticking with the album’s theme, Ferry also explores his inclinations with nature — for ‘Caom’, he took live recordings of wind and rain hitting organic surfaces like trees and leaves, or the ground. The goal with these sounds was to replace textures like white noise to have something more dramatic, organic and unique. All those recorded raindrops were processed with a resonator plug-in to redefine them with musicality, and give them a comfortable place in the album.

The cinematic scoring can really be profoundly heard on ‘Sehnsucht’, which loosely translates from German to mean ‘yearning’ or ‘longing’. What starts out with a gentle and long crescendo of soft piano notes and strings, is wound up by contrastingly dirty synths, that climax with a section of powerful drums and staggered drum sequencing, reminiscent of 90s cinematic trip-hop from the likes of Massive Attack.

The whole album is certainly a new adventure from, and probably to, Ferry. Speaking further on the album and his change in approach on ‘As Above So Below’, Ferry commented, “I normally produce with a certain structure in mind, which is mostly designed for the dancefloor amongst other things. For this album, however, I went in with a completely blank piece of paper, shut off the autopilot and just went with the flow. No rules, no overthinking. Just let it come naturally. That was one of the biggest changes to how I approached the whole process of making this album.” He explains this even more intimately in an open letter to his fans which you can read below.