X Marks The Spot For Armin van Buuren As He Returns Down Under

Global superstar DJ/ producer Armin van Buuren closes out one of the most successful and productive years of his career with a visit to Australia where he'll headline Festival X this weekend.

2019 has seen Armin rack up some impressive stats while marking several key milestones. He was voted into the top five of the coveted DJ Mag Top 100 list for the 18th year, celebrated 950 episodes of his 'A State Of Trance' radio show, and released his seventh studio album 'Balance' – which represents a new chapter for Armin as he seeks a middle-ground between his past and future.

“The fans seem to really love the new approach,” Armin says.

“Obviously it's a bit of a departure from the previous six albums that I did, but that's also due to the fact that we consume music now very different than ten years ago, because everyone is on Spotify or Apple Music or streaming.

“So you should really see the album as a play list rather than an album because I decided to put 14 tracks on the album plus 14 that were already released, so it's more like a playlist.”



Armin's shift in approach with making 'Balance' came about as a result of him adapting to dramatic changes in how music is distributed and consumed as streaming platforms supersede physical releases as well as the seemingly ever-shortening attention spans of listeners. “That's the reason why there's only edits on the album and no extended versions,” he explains.

“I make the extended versions available to people if they still want to have them but it's all edits on the album, so it's definitely a different approach.

“It's more like a journey; an album is always like a photograph of where you are musically and I learned so much from working with established and newer names to the scenes, and that was the most exciting thing about it.”

On 'Balance', Armin has collaborated with the varying likes of Ne-Yo, Conrad Sewell and Scott Storch in an effort to bridge his extensive history with the next phase of his career.

“The reason it's called 'Balance' is because [of] trying to find a balance between my older Armin sound – the sound that my fans know me for - and still exploring new territories [by] working with people like Ne-Yo, Conrad Sewell and Scott Storch – people that I've never worked with, but they are really opening my heart to newer ways of production.”

A personal highlight of the year for Armin was the long-awaited album release from his Gaia project, a record entitled 'Moons Of Jupiter' that Armin says provides a counterpoint to his more accessible commercial work. “'Balance' is a compete departure from my previous albums,” he says.

“It's new and it doesn't mean that I'm not proud of my previous albums but for some reason I'm more productive in the studio than ever. You really have to take Gaia 'Moons Of Jupiter' into account with the 'Balance' album because that's the dark side of Armin if you will. So you should really see 'Balance' in the light of the Gaia 'Moons Of Jupiter' album.”