[/align]Dutch DJ/producer Rafaël Frost is a fixture on Ferry Corsten’s Flashover Recordings with releases like the surprisingly effective Bryan Adams bootleg Run To You and the awesome Minimum. His latest, Red, is a tribute to his girlfriend, with red being her favourite colour – cute. Previous productions like his remix of Rank 1 & Alex M.O.R.P.H. have tended to lean towards more techy sounds, yet this new release looks to be the start of an exciting new direction for Rafaël. Already hammered by the top DJs in its original form, the full Flashover release comes with a remix from head honcho Ferry Corsten.
The Original Mix trembles with expectant excitement right from the first beat, with some neat clicky percussion and a subtle hint of dirt, before a joyous, shooting star of a melody unexpectedly bursts out. It is utterly celestial and the sheer joie de vivre it inspires is wonderful. The track soon drops into the breakdown where a beautiful plucked melody is coaxed into life, soon expanding to its full euphoric potential, before a teasing white noise build up and the beat kicks back in, the melody carried into a wonderfully uplifting section. After a few bars of this, the second part of the melody is revealed in a beautiful natural progression. The track then drops away to a second of silence that is a bit annoying, I’m sure I’m not the first to think my CD is skipping, mp3 is corrupt or radio is buffering at this point. The silence serves as a pause before a final, breathless burst of euphoria featuring the original stellar melody before leading into the rollout with the clicky percussion reprised.
The Ferry Corsten remix ups the BPM a couple of notches and expands on the ‘wood-block’ percussion that was a feature of the start and end of the original. The lead melody is introduced first here, building up before a burst of electro-noise and the sparkling melody begins increasing in euphoric power shooting ever higher before dropping into the main breakdown. The lead is played out on here on a crystal clear synth. There is a tense build-up before it kicks back in quite effectively, though I feel Ferry could have injected a bit more energy at this point. Also, the melody doesn’t have the same progression as the original. The lead out is good for mixing though with the cool wood-block sounds.
The Original Mix is one of the finest uplifting moments of 2009 so far - it is near enough the most sheer unbridled joy I have ever heard packed into 8 minutes and if someone wrote a track as marvellous as this for me, I’d be asking for their hand in marriage. Rafaël Frost has given us so many beautiful melodies to enjoy all in one track, while retaining his skill as crafting great percussive loops and this will surely go down as one of the most memorable trance tracks this year. Ferry’s remix is a mild disappointment, although he has got rid of the silence (which I did not enjoy) I feel he could have given us more energy, plus he ditches the wonderful way the melody progresses in the original. The original though is so good that 1.) it made me write in French and 2.) my housemate’s mother overheard it and asked me what it was – and that, to me, is the ultimate seal of approval 4.5/5
Tracklist
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1. Red (original mix) - 07:59
2. Red (Ferry Corsten Remix) - 08:00
Samples:
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