Dusted Down: Armin Van Buuren – Mirage (Music On Vinyl)
We revisit Van Buuren’s genre-defining fourth LP
Right now, trance is in vogue. But thanks to the post-ironic manner of the e-boys and girls who have appropriated the genre – not to mention the tongue-in-cheek taglines of newer trancey artists like Lorenzo Senni and HDMirror, who have capitalised on the sound while using reformative slogans like “the shape of trance to come” – this new wave has rightly earned the name ‘nu-trance’ or ‘neo-trance’.
When we heard Music On Vinyl was reissuing Armin Van Buuren’s fourth album Mirage, we jumped at the chance to reflect on trance when the style was at its purest (and perhaps, by proxy, existed in its now most derided form). In a world where pop cheese is so celebrated, coming full circle in its new, glossed-out denomination ‘hyperpop’, why should the ‘naff’ overemotion of old school trance not be considered in the same breath?
Armin Van Buuren is an OG trance megastar, and is nowadays a rare example of an EDM titan who – like Sasha, Skrillex or Carl Cox – has managed to maintain an ounce of integrity, beneath all the plasticcy DJ sets and festival appearances. Since 2001, one of his most notable achievements has been his ‘A State Of Trance’ radio show, based in his native Netherlands. Being a household gatekeeper for the kind of saturated, ‘female vocal’ trance that many of us maintain a morbid curiosity towards rather than flat out enjoy, ASOT nevertheless garnered a listenership of over 40 million people by the time its 20th anniversary rolled around.
With Van Buuren at the helm of tastemakership for arguably some of the biggest tunes in the trance game, it might seem like ‘Mirage’ is the ultimate version of pop trance in album form. And that’s a craft relatively few artists have been able to master (Robert Miles and N-Trance also spring to mind). It opens with ‘Desiderium 207’, which delivers nothing short of what we’d expect; timpani, deep-droning pads, and ethereal vocals from Armada Records mainstay Susana. In as much as it functions as a blissful intro, the track could fit just as easily on the soundtrack to the next Dune film.
Couple that with the following tracks, and we’ve no sense of confusion over the odyssey narrative Van Buuren is trying to tell. The smash hit ‘Mirage’ opens with castanet clacks and even more ethereal ethnic singing, as great caverns of square-wave chords widen, before we finally reach his patented plastic synth sequence and kick combo. From there on, this trend continues in all-killer-no-filler fashion, with ‘Take A Moment’ and ‘Drowning’ laying down unparalleled gloss, future vox slices and digi-instrument sheen. The high end is cranked, and most of the claps sound like wet fish slaps, but we know you love it. Most of the lyrics are fittingly shoddy – for example, “take a moment to live / take a moment to love / take a moment to cry” – but again, it adds to the charm.
We find it no surprise that, in 2010, Van Buuren was able to perform this album (and more) in front of 15,000 people, a feat that we must admit may not be achievable today. As part of the ‘Armin Only’ world tour, he and his collaborators appeared at the Jaarbeurs venue in Utrecht, where a whopping 9-hour show chronicled only a few years’ work from the producer, not to mention a dazzling light spectacle that evidently wowed attendees. We doubt ‘neo-trance’ shows would be able to attract that kind of crowd today. Indeed, most musicians and fans the world over are sincere; they’re earnestly in love with their favourite genres, not relating to their passions in an avant-garde or postironic way. For that reason, ‘Mirage’ to the present-day listener represents a genre that, while perhaps not being yet fleshed out in terms of experimentation, was at its most genuine.
Jude Iago James
Music On Vinyl’s reissue of Mirage is available for pre-order here