Search - Richard Durand :: The Air We Breathe

Allow us to catch you up... It's been six years since Richard Durand sent us his boldly high-concept 'Richard Durand Versus The World' album. It's reasonable to say that in the meantime his outlook on many aspects of life - both personal and professional - have shifted. Over that period he has circled the planet a dozen + times, DJing, producing travelling, experiencing and life balancing. It's also a timeframe within which he experienced loss (through the passing of his long-time friend & manager) and a near sizeable shift in his trance music tastes. (The latter prompting him to depart the 'In Search Of Sunrise' mix series). Consequently Richard has been on album-pause while the frequencies realigned and life loops resolved. He always knew that when he returned to the medium (after 2009's 'Always The Sun', 2011s 'Wide Awake' and 2012's 'R.D.V.T.W.'), it had to be with a world-beater. To that end Durand has spent much of the last 14 months developing a new track collection, strong in both number (it features 19 productions) and sonic nature. It also bucks the current trend of collab, collab, collab, its assembly being far more Richard's own singular take on the trance sound. Where studio partnerships occur, artistically they do so organically. They take place with likeminded operators (Marco V, Mark Sherry, Sied van Riel, by way of example) who share Richard's vision of a tougher, more propulsive clubbing tomorrow. Similarly vocal cuts are distinct in their rarity - Christina Novelli and Mike Schmidt (last heard on Cosmic Gate's 'Nothing Can Touch You Now') make appearances throughout its course. The album is a release whose essence is bound in the oneness of the hypnotic, marching and indeed flat-out entrancing character of trance. 'The Air We Breathe' is as much an exhalation as inhalation for the Dutchman, and one with the unmistakable subtext of one musical era passing and the beginning of another.