Early in his career, Corsten recorded under a plethora of pseudonyms, and did not issue an album under his own name until 2003. The very first full-length he ever released, 1996's Looking Forward, was under the alias Ferr. It had an ambient/breakbeat techno sound combining laid-back melodies with dancefloor-ready rhythms and sounded nothing like the melodic trance with which he would eventually become synonymous, but neither was it anything like the music he would later go on to release under the same name. After being commissioned to write the score for the 2018 psychological thriller Don't Go, Corsten discovered a love of ambient and modern classical sounds. Resolving to write music "for himself," he began work on an album. In 2018 he reactivated the long-dormant Ferr project (so long-forgotten that most media outlets described it as "new") to release an EP, Encounters. It was followed in 2020 by an album, As Above So Below. A soothing collection of tranquil, beatless pieces mostly performed on heavily processed solo piano and synths, it featured contributions from pianist Geronimo Snijtsheuvel on two tracks. ~ John D. Buchanan, Rovi