What Happened To: Nicky Romero & Eva Simons – Circle Of One

Today’s episode is going to be special as I’ll be talking about ‘Circle of One’ made by none other than Protocol Recordings founder, Nicky Romero and another fellow Dutch singer/songwriter Eva Simons. I consider this one of the greatest unreleased singles of all time, which also has an on/off relationship with Nicky questioning whether to release or not, debating at times with Eva Simons herself. This song has been in limbo for so long and it is up to us to share the story of this beautiful song to keep it alive.

Protocol Radio played this track a couple of times already. The track resurfaced when Nicky played this as a spotlight track at ‘Protocol Radio – Episode 282’ back in early 2018, hyping fans once again for the disappeared track. If I were to predict, ‘Circle of One’ was probably first drafted around late 2012 when Nicky’s discography enjoyed its golden days. 

Moving on to the structure, the intro is interesting since it starts with the drop, along with violin chords build up. The first drop shares some similarities with another huge Romero track ‘Symphonica’ from 2012. The breakdown then starts with graceful vocals from Eva and plays a huge role in the whole breakdown and the second drop. Nicky used more violin and piano chords to support Eva’s lyrics. The drop blasted off with the fresh old Progressive style of Nicky’s signature from early 2010s. The design of the drop still sounds relevant when compared to today’s festival progressive sounds.

Somehow, ‘Circle of One’ was predicted to be released somewhere around 2013 or 2014. However, that didn’t happen as the years passed by. The track went under the radar for several years until he pranked one of his fans that he uploaded the ‘Circle of One’s artwork with an old Protocol design. He tweeted that he was disappointed in the song, that he wasted his time and energy.

A few months later after the twitter prank, Eva Simons tweeted to her fans that she’ll try to release the track one way or another, even if Nicky refused to release it officially for the last time. Let’s just hope ‘Circle Of One’ will be releasing in the near future regardless of the bleak situation.

Written by Devanesh Raj / Delacour Agency