From the outside looking in, ‘making it’ in the electronic music sphere always appears to be the toughest nut to crack. Mark Sherry however would respectfully disagree. ‘Staying there’ is where the hard work begins. Famously, Mark did the former, near enough, inside his first studio trip, taking him to the top 5 of both his native UK and the international charts. He has barely paused for breath since. A testament to a professional life lived exclusively within the dance music space, ‘TH3RTY’s titledenotes both his years working there and the album’s track count. Work hard and (DJ-wise) play hard is Mark’s ethic, and ‘TH3RTY’s its absolute embodiment.
Fittingly, over ‘TH3RTY’s thirty, its music both looks forward and reflects back. It features collaborations with rising singer-songwriters like Adara, Brieanna Grace and Kate Louise Smith. Equally, it includes partnerships with industry mainstays like The Space Brothers, Sarah Howells, and fellow Scot, David Forbes. Mark has also seized the opportunity to crate dig and remix cherry pick some of his all-time favourites, assigning his signature sound to tracks from Armin van Buuren, Mauro Picotto, and Westbam. And if all that hasn’t yet left you breathless, he also unveils a multi-track stack from a newer alias, setting the stage for fresh creative explorations and pays musical tribute to the close friend and former bandmate Mallorca Lee that he lost in 2024.
“Blood sweat and tears doesn’t even come close!” is how Mark assesses ‘TH3RTY’s two year production run. What it takes to stay atop the electronic music game is laid out in dazzling, exacting and wildly uplifting detail.‘TH3RTY’ releases Feb 21, 2025.
Highlights throughout? Well, picking firsts-among-equals is no easy task, but what’ll stand out just as quickly is ‘TH3RTY’s structure. Not just in how it plays, but also how, intentionally, Mark has sectioned his different work areas throughout it. It begins in full voice, launching with a powerful salvo of production/vocal collaborations. ‘Forever’ is graced by Brieanna Grace, while Adara’s voice sets light to ‘Flammable’ and Sarah Howells’ soars on ‘Heroes’. Dilemma’s early ‘90s Balearic anthem ‘In Spirit’ gets the treatment before Sherry & The Space Brothers elevate ‘Angel’ and Peetu S & Emma Gillespie (a former winner of Sky TV’s ‘Must Be the Music’) part the waves on ‘Open Ocean’. From there, Mark checks off three major names from his personal remix wishlist, rewiring the legendary ‘Wizards of the Sonic’ by Westbam, Armin’s debut trancer ‘Blue Fear’, and Mauro Picotto’s irrepressible ‘Iguana’.
As the first disc crests, Sherry calls in his old Thick As Thieves sparring partner, David Forbes, for another galloping, floor-thirsty tech-trancer in the form of ‘Superposition’. The pair then rewind to their 2020 Techburst release with an equally charged-up remix of ‘Tingles’.
Disc 2 again sees Mark quartering the album’s endeavours. The first half has Sherry moving between solo works like ‘In The Darkness [I Find My Light]’, ‘Rave Is Life [We Play It Loud]’ and ‘Collide’ and partnering with Kriess Guyte, Systembreaker and Gordon Tennant respectively on ‘Who Loves U’, ‘Break It’ and ‘Heaven Is My XTC’. Midpoint, Mark drops fresh material from his recently unveiled hard techno alias, Dark Sherry, which he deck-debuted at Dreamstate SoCal in 2023. Freak Unique and Oshy 303 (son of Mallorca Lee) lend a hand on ‘We Are Free’ and ‘The Only Way’, while ‘Dark’ solo trip’s it on ‘Dance With Me’ and ‘We’re Gonna Rave’.
The album ends on the most emotional and indeed poignant of notes. Having dropped ‘Our Little Game’, his final collaboration with Majorca Lee earlier in the disc, Mark dedicates the final track quartet to his former bandmate and close friend who passed away in February of 2024. Mark has remixed a trio of Lee’s early nineties Ultra-Sonic releases (‘Obsession’, ‘React’ and ‘ Love Me Right’), and as a final GBNF tribute, has recorded ‘Mallorca’s Superstar [We Are The Universe]’ as the album’s closing act.
So, there you have it: thirty for thirty (for ‘TH3RTY’!) … because if you have that in you, why wouldn’t you!!?!
‘TH3RTY’ is available to pre-order now and releases through all channels, Feb 21. [blackhole.lnk.to/th3rty]
