As most of you know, Armin Van Buuren is gearing up to release Embrace, his sixth studio album, on October 30th. Already we’ve heard the disc’s lead single, “Another You,” the collaboration with Hardwell, titled “Off The Hook,” and also the title track, which the producer previewed on episode 733 of his incredibly popular radio show, A State of Trance.
While he’s already spoken out a little bit on what to expect from Embrace, Van Buuren opened up to us last weekend when we sat down with him at TomorrowWorld to chat about the upcoming album. Explaining that the idea behind the effort is to embrace “different instruments” and “experiment,” he went into detail about how it’s been a very different and new experience for him.
Check out what he had to say below:
Well the idea behind Embrace was to embrace different cultures, different views, different styles, and different instruments, quite literally. So all those things are incorporated in the album quite literally. So if you look at the album cover which was already revealed, you can see that I’m sitting in a car, and on the car are different instruments. All those instruments are literally on the album. Spanish guitar, trumpet, real drums, you know, all that kind of stuff. Which is unusual, especially the trumpet.
The opening track, “Embrace,” features a jazz trumpet player called Eric Vloeimans. He’s one of the best trumpet players in the world. And I’m super excited about this track, because it’s the first time a jazz musician has ever worked with a trance artist. And I think it’s a really great track. It’s still a trance track, it’s 134 bpm, so it’s pretty bangin’ and it has a drop, but it has a trumpet as sort of the lead instrument. And this is one of the things with “Embrace” is it’s an experiment. I don’t know if people will like it, but I hope so! I love the track, but it’s a very different and new thing and this also goes to the rest of the album. There’s a lot of experimentation with different styles and genres and yeah, I’m just super excited!
I mean, one of the things for me – I understand that some trance artists try to stick within their own safety zone, and I’ve done that for years as well, and there’s nothing wrong with that! I’m not criticizing at all. But just for me, I found out – I’ve been making records for 22 years. And I want to venture out, I want to learn. And I now understand how little I actually know about record producing, because there’s so much to learn! About working with, you know, a full band, working with a jazz musician, working with Spanish guitar, how to record that. It’s so inspiring, right? It’s so cool to be in the studio and come up with an artist that you normally would never work with. “Hey man, let’s just try and work together, let’s create something beautiful.”
And I know that the outcome will always be weird, because I’m working with a jazz guy! Heck! You only live once, let’s just try it! And I think it’s awesome. I’ve done the trance thing, and I will always keep doing the trance thing. This year alone, I produced like four or five 138 tracks, a few of ‘em still have to come out. But on the other hand, I’ve been producing with a lot of different styles and genres. So I’m moving forward and I hope that the people that listen to the album will appreciate the steps forward that I’m making. The experimentation, going out of my safety zone, all without losing my sound of course.
Those comments definitely have us excited for Embrace, and judging by the material we’ve heard so far, it looks like we’re in for a real treat. It’s always great to see artists stretching themselves creatively, as long as it’s done in a way that feels genuine, and we can’t wait for October 30th to arrive so that we can see in full what the legendary Armin Van Buuren has been cooking up for the past little while.