Remaining at the trance vanguard, Corsten has this year headlined the 20,000 Dutch Mecca of Trance Energy, rocked Miami's Ultra Music Festival, enjoyed a 26-city bus tour of the States and rocked 15,000 sun-soaked beach ravers at Malaysia's Two Days of Freedom festival. Just another year in the life of the prolific Dutchman, then. 'Playing back-to-back with Tiësto in San Francisco was amazing,' he tells us. 'It was a real off-the-cuff thing but we just had a laugh as mates, played all our old classics and it was just what the crowd wanted. It was like going back to where we came from - having fun - so we did it again at my Flashover Arena at Dance Valley.' Whilst Tiësto remains the DJ demi-God and Armin the people's champion, it's as a producer where Corsten has marked himself out as a true master of his craft. Ever since '99 anthems like 'Out Of The Blue' (as System F) laid down the original Dutch trance template, Corsten has achieved a rare balance by enjoying both commercial success (read ten UK Top 40 records) and credible acclaim. Back in 2002, his electro-edged 'Punk' re-wrote the trance rule-book entirely, whilst his second album 'L.E.F.' reached right out of the genre through collaborations with Gang Starr rapper Guru, '80s synth-pop pioneer Howard Jones and even Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon on the euphoric house fused anthem 'On Fire'. But this year Corsten has stripped things back to his trance roots. 'I've definitely returned to a more trance focused sound,' he explains. 'The reason I started experimenting with electro and house was because the melodic sound had got really samey but now that's the case with a lot of the electro influenced stuff. 'When they're done right the big melodies and huge riffs really set a crowd on fire and there are lots of good, interesting tracks like that around right now.' One such track is surely Corsten's recent 'Radio Crash' single. Effortlessly catchy, it's simple, soaring melodies have stayed just on the right side of the cheese line and flown straight into the boxes of Armin van Buuren, Above & Beyond, Judge Jules and just about every other trance heavy-hitter. It's not just his own productions that he's been carefully tending after, though. As his Flashover label empire continues to grow, Corsten's experienced ears are busy nurturing a new wave of trance talents. Building a strong label family rather than licensing single tracks, Corsten has brought through acts like 26-year-old Dutch trailblazer Rafael, US duo Randy Boga & Eric Tadler and 17-year-old Polish prodigy P.A.F.F, whose epic cosmic trance boogie 'From King To Finch' caused serious damage early in the year. Leading the charge, however, is Corsten's much-vaunted US protégé Breakfast. 'The stuff he sends us is so good but it ranges from really minimal deep sounds right through to the big hands-in-the-air sound that people associate with him,' explains Ferry. 'It's just a waste not to release it all and we don't want to keep him too much in one corner so we've given him his own label - Moodymoon Recordings. It's his own little platform to experiment then he can do everything he wants.' As for Corsten, his year end will take in the second epic Full-On-Ferry event in his home city of Rotterdam, more US touring, pushing the release of his third solo album 'Twice In A Blue Moon' and a New Year's Eve centred tour of Australia with the Summer Days festival. 'I've become a dad for the first time recently so I always take the first flight out from European gigs,' he adds. 'It's hard but you do find yourself in your own bed in the morning and then you have the whole day with your kid.'