One of Russia’s longterm representatives in the Top 100 poll, Dmitry Almazov AKA Bobina was well-and-truly keeping his head down this year.

“I spent almost half of the year finishing my new album 'Same Difference',” he told DJ Mag “The rest of the time, I was thinking about how to explain the title of the album to people!”

At the time of last year’s poll, the long serving trance veteran was talking about how the big room sounds of progressive house were increasingly drawing him in. With the release of the new album, this continues unabated. Bobina claims it’s “all EDM nowadays” anyway, pointing out that a year down the track, there’s less and less discernible difference between progressive house and trance. Still, there’s plenty of room to subvert expectations.

“The first singles, which were released before the album was out, were quite housey. So in general I think it surprised the #trancefamily that the rest of it was very trancey. When you produce music, surprising people is one of the most important things.”