System F - Out Of The Blue

One of the best tunes ever made, a tingly classic that has been played by yours truly all over the United Kingdom, be it at Dance Academy or on a free party on Dartmoor, this one definitely got a play and is semi responsible for my liking of trance! What a tune, it's so spine tingly good that I wish that I made it! Ferry Corsten is a legend for productions of such a high quality. Simply put this rocks the place!

This track really got me into the whole 1999 trance thing (previously i was into Speed Garage). I remember hearing it on Pete Tongs Essential Selection first and didn't really thing nothing of it. However, when Paul Oakenfold played it at Cream, well, i fully understood then.

This track will be earmarked as a classic of the "chemical generation" in many years to come. It possesses the most beautiful melancholic riff i have heard in a dance record. Its in the quieter part of the track, the hairs on the back of your neck will stand on end, and admittedly, i have hugged many a random in Gatecrasher to this. Special times indeed when this whole trance sound was breaking through and this very special tune spearheaded the movement.

One of the many aliases of Ferry Corsten is ‘System F’. The first track that was released under this projectname was ‘Out Of The Blue’. This track is known nowadays as one of the most famous trance classics ever. Almost everybody knows the amazing riff, the cool synthesizer lead sound and the pumping beats of this track. ‘Out Of The Blue’ also inspired a lot of other people to start making music as well!

Ferry finished ‘Out Of The Blue’ already at the end of 1998. Because Ferry released some other tracks on ‘Tsunami’, a label of Dutch record company Purple Eye, he already had contact with Tsunami’s A&R manager Maykel Piron (nowadays managing director of the ‘Armada’ label). After listening to the track, Maykel signed the track immediately! The official vinyl release was in March 1999 on the ‘Tsunami’ label (cat.nr. TSU 6008).

Before the official retail release, some very limited one sided promo vinyls were send to a few selected DJ’s. The only information that was available on each vinyl was a white label with a stamped mobile phone number and the text ‘Out Of The Blue’. On the sleeve there was a hand written text with ‘Something to blow your brains out’. Furthermore a sort of a ransom letter was included with the vinyl as well. The catalognumbers of all promo vinyls were cut out with a knife, so people could not trace from which record company and label this mysterious release was.

One of the DJ’s that received a white label was Nick Warren (known from ‘Way Out West’). After listening to the vinyl he phoned ‘Hooj Choons’ and told them about the track. So their A&R manager dialed the mobile number (that was on the sleeve) and they gave an offer for the track. Keep in mind that he only heard a bit of the track through a phone! A bit later Pete Tong (of Essential Recorings, a sublabel of London Records) also was on the phone and he also gave an offer. Both labels started bidding up against each other. At one point Pete Tong said: “I’m going to fly to Amsterdam now, so come to the airport, I want to close the deal overthere”. So shortly after that Ferry and his manager drove to Schiphol. They met Pete Tong, they closed the deal at the airport and some time later Pete Tong flew back to the UK…

Another true story about the white label promo’s: Paul Oakenfold has also got a white label, but for some kind of reason he did not listen to it or he lost it. When he heard about the track and knew that a friend had it, he gave him 1.500 Dutch Guldens (now about € 750,-) for it!


In 2004 the Japanese record company ‘Avex Trax’ released a classical remake of ‘Out Of The Blue’ on the CD ‘Velfarre Cyber Trance 10 Anniversary Edition’. This version [4:23] was made by the ‘Orchestre Cyber France de Paris’ to celebrate the 10th anniversary of ‘Avex Trax’.