Armin van Buuren

What started out as a personal obsession turned joke on the A State of Trance radio show has now become a reality for Dutch star Armin van Buuren. Initiating the recent wave of popularity of “uplifting” trance (music with a faster beat than most music at 138 BPMs or higher), it’s now spread from the underground to bring the style its own stage at A State of Trance events and bring artists like Simon Patterson and Aly & Fila more exposure.

Armin has had quite a year: regaining the #1 spot atop the DJ Mag Top 100 poll, releasing his artist album Intense to great critical acclaim, welcoming his son Remy into the world and immediately rushing to make the emotional announcement in front of 180,000 people to open his performance at Tomorrowland. And today, he has launched the appropriately named Who’s Afraid of 138?! record label to house his further adventures down the rabbit hole. Premiering on the label are two remixes of Armin’s track of the same name that was released on Intense earlier this year, and feature two recent favorites of 138-junkies: Photographer and Jordan Suckley. This remix EP shows the depth of style that can exist in this newly popular style, and that we as listeners are going to learn a lot about where this music can go as long as there are people to listen.