Miguel Ramirez
“I’m honoured and privileged to be back with the Armin Only Embrace tour,” Armin van Buuren tells The Trance Project.
Armin van Buuren will be hitting Sydney on January 28, 2017 for ‘Armin Only Embrace’ and is a perfect opportunity to witness the legend’s search for new musical grounds and untouched territory, his journey to take his own work to the next level.
‘Armin Only Embrace’ is to comprise a solo performance of Armin van Buuren, joined by live performances, dance acts, striking visuals, special effects, and, of course, a lot of music from his ‘Embrace’ album. He will also treat Aussie fans to a special vinyl set.
The Trance Project caught up with the legend over the phone last week to talk all things Trance and he revealed more about the Embrace show.
Armin Only Embrace tix available here.
We’re thrilled to see you back in Australia next year in January – how excited are you for your Armin Only Embrace show in Sydney?
Well it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done. It’s something I’m super excited about and very pleased to bring it back to Australia because the last tour, Intense, was one of the best, crowd-wise and reaction-wise, there’s just so much love for Trance.
You’ve been travelling to Australia for so many years now – what do you love most about our country?
I like to call Australia my second home. Aussies are really friendly, I asked my wife to marry me there, my parents use to live there for a year, my father was a doctor in WA based out in Perth for a bit so that was pretty cool. I’ve just been coming there so many times, more than I visit many cities in Holland!
What are your thoughts on Australia’s Trance scene?
Australia has always had a massive love for Trance. There are not many countries in the world that have great events and great DJ’s. It’s really one of the best countries to play if you’re into Trance. I’ve been coming there since around 2000, so it’s a long time.
On the latest episode of ASOT we heard the incredible remix of ‘Mirage’ which is featured on the ‘Club Embrace’ album – will we hear many of these remixes from the album at ‘Armin Only Embrace’ in Sydney?
The concept of Armin Only is that I’m the only DJ, so I was kind of like ‘well, what are we going to do this time for the warm-up?’ People are coming in, you want to play some music and you don’t want to just get a warm up DJ because that really doesn’t make any sense.
So we got the people that are actually in charge of the front of house, the guys that are there any way to help me with the show and they’ll be playing my own tracks for depending how long the walk in is, usually between one or two hours.
The idea of ‘Club Embrace’ was born out of the warm up sets that I do for the live ASOT events. A lot of Progressive producers gave me so much love because they said ‘finally my track is getting released,’ a lot of these warm up sets were released on Spotify and iTunes and they were all thrilled.
I started approaching these Progressive producers with the idea of remixing some of my older tracks – Progressive, Deep House style, because it’s a style I really love and I’ve always been playing that sound, it’s not something new, just as a warm up.
A full on trance set for me, if I play longer than two to three hours, always has some of these progressive kind of records.
‘Club Embrace’ is the complete opposite of the ‘Old Skool’ album that I released, which is all part of the Embrace show, and shows how diverse the show is and what you can expect. The fact that I’ve released two more albums out of this Embrace project shows how diverse I’m going to make this show.
For me, Trance has always been more than just one formulaic kind of thing. As much as I love all the uplifting stuff, which is something I will always support, Trance for me has always been about a variety of sounds, as long as the melody is the key ingredient.
You’re also going to perform a special vinyl set in Sydney – what was the first ever record you bought and do you have an all-time favourite trance song?
The first ever record I bought was Tyree – ‘Acid Crash’ and that was around 1990, a long time ago. I still have it somewhere, I looked it up on eBay the other day and I think it’s worth a lot of money now, but I’m not going to sell it.
If you put a gun to my head, and say you have to mention one favourite tune, then I’d have to say LSG – ‘Netherworld’, Oliver Lieb – everything he did back then.
What I love about that time in Trance, there weren’t any rules, there wasn’t ‘like the breakdown has to be this’ and the ‘vocal has to be like this,’ it wasn’t formularic at all and that’s what I loved about it.
That’s also why I also release the ‘Old Skool’ album. At that time when house music was just born it was so fresh, there weren’t any rules, it was just all about fun.
Now everybody is either about Trance, Techno or Deep House etc, and it’s all about genre’s right now, which is something I really hate, I’m not going to lie.
My heart will always be with trance.
I’ll always keep producing Trance but with Embrace, the mission for me was to also discover uncharted territory by working with Eric Vloeimans, the trumpet player, who’s extremely talented and works mostly with classical orchestra’s.
As much as I love trance and think it’s in a great place right now, I think the only way we can keep this genre alive is by keeping it interesting and incorporate new elements from other genres. I’m never going to sell my soul to EDM or whatever you want to call it, I’m always Trance and that’s what I’ve always played, but I think it’s essential for the genre to survive to keep looking at the future, what guys like MaRLo are doing and Orjan Nilsen, KhoMha and Mark Sixma – They keep a fresh eye to the sounds that are hot now.
Where do you see the Armin Only brand in 5 years time?
I don’t know if I will keep doing Armin Only. Right now this is the biggest show I’ve ever done, it’s going to be very hard to top this one.
I’m touring with Kensington and Mr Probz, and all these other artists and acts. I thought I couldn’t top ‘Armin Only Intense’, Embrace is very different than Intense, it’s going to be very hard to think of another show. It’s also very expensive to put on a show like this. The big difference between a normal Amrin van Buuren set and an Armin Only show is that we actually go into a rehearsal period and do try outs which normally only happens in the world theatre.
I rehearsed for three weeks, It doesn’t mean the set is pre-programmed, because you’ll hear a lot of new music depending on the tracks that will be released around that time in Australia, every Armin Only show is different, but the live tracks that we perform, we put a lot of time in to rehearsing and making sure the performance is a great edition to the set rather than just taking away from it.
Do you have any final words for all your Aussie fans?
I’m super excited to come back to Australia, it’s one of my favourite countries, I’ll actually be spending some holiday time with my family, and I just want to give a lot of love back to all the love that I’ve received from Australia. I think the country can be super excited and proud for all the talent that is there and for the amazing amount of events that you guys have going on, it’s seriously one of the best countries to play as a DJ.
I’m honoured and privileged to be back with the Armin Only Embrace tour.
Armin Only Embrace
Saturday January 28, 2017
Exhibition Halls, Sydney Showgrounds.
Tickets are on sale now!
