Classic Album: Ferry Corsten, L.E.F.
Flashover Recordings, 2006
Ferry Corsten doesn’t like to keep still. Like some kind of Dutch trance shark, he has to keep moving else he’ll cark it. Constantly releasing, constantly reinventing himself, he’s one producer that can’t be pinned down. Case in point: His second album, L.E.F.
He says the title stands for “Loud. Electronic. Ferocious.” Apt, as the energy levels throughout are through the roof. It’s also close to the word ‘lef’ in his native tongue, which roughly translated, means ‘daring’ or ‘gutsy’, and boy is it that.
Corsten could have made a straight-up trance album. He could have followed the successful blueprint of his previous bangers like Rock Your Body Rock from his debut album Right of Way. Instead, he plundered the ’80s both for vibes and for vocalists, repurposing the voice of Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon for the track Fire.
“It was a time when I was getting out of the whole trance thing,” says Corsten. “I was getting motivated by a lot of stuff I was hearing around me at the time – in particular the whole electro clash thing and the whole ’80s electro sound.”
Holed up in his attic studio, Corsten worked every hour in the day for well over a year with this sound, crafting beats in Cubase and tweaking his V-Synth. He was drawing on his dance music upbringing, and started to bring a grainy, vintage touch to his production, as well as broaden his palette with more electro and house tinges. It had attitude. It was distorted.
L.E.F. was more than, well, trance. It was the perfect balance between old and new. Tracks like Beautiful leaped forward in years, while Cubikated shuddered with nostalgia for a bygone era.
“I’ve always been playing with that balance,” says Corsten. “But for this album I really brought that sound into what I was doing at the time: it was trance, but with sidesteps to the left and right. It was important to challenge myself to try and do something different.”
As you’d expect, Ferry Corsten continues to push the envelope today. His new high-concept sci-fi album, Blueprint, is out now. For tour details, check his website.