Estiva - Strawberry Fields EP

Estiva aka Steven Baan continues to amaze with this EP. After his amazing debut EP "Stella" last year i had huge expectations to the follow up. In the meanwhile his collaboration with Marninx entitled "Casa Grande" was featured on Tiësto's highly acclaimed mixcompilation "In Search of Sunrise 7 - Ibiza", another piece of melodic trance with an unique melody only to show what to come.

First up on this EP is "Strawberry Fields". It takes me back to the good old Jonas Steur / Estuera days on Intuition and early Black Hole releases. Perfect for the summer, it is slowly launching a massive synth lead that just builds and builds. Very laidback but at the same time so uplifting.
"Fame" is more in the traditional Estiva style, with a stunning melody in the style of "Stella" on previous EP. Hints of tech-trance is clearly noticable, which makes this track even more fresh. Tech-trance is the keyword in "Fake Snake", a real 'tech monster' not trying to be a copy-cat of the current wave of tech-tunes that sometimes lacks creativity.

The diversity in this release make it very long-lasting. Steven Baan shows he is able to produce beautiful, melodic pieces of trance together with tech-slammers, and they all work out so well. Definately one of my favourite releases this year, not to be missed - and a guy to watch out for!