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Game Changer

Photo of Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt posing in front of a white background

When New York house legend Todd Terry remixed Everything But The Girl, it catapulted them to a new level of fame, and into the world of dance music. With their first album in 24 years, 'Fuse', out now, Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt reflect on their classic track, and how it transformed their lives

“Once ‘Missing’ became a club hit, Warner re-released it, so then it became a full-blown pop hit,” says Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn, reminiscing...

Purple cover art for Tina Moore’s ‘Never Gonna Let You Go (Kelly G’s Bump-N-Go Mix)’ with a black border.

When Kelly Griffin was tasked with crafting a remix of American R&B singer Tina Moore, he decided to try something a bit different — and in the process, he laid the groundwork for the 2-step garage sound that swept London and then much of the rest of the UK in the late 1990s. DJ Mag’s Ben Cardew tracks down Kelly G in the US to hear the story of a true game changer

The complex, multi-inspirational ways in which music evolves means it is generally impossible to say what record was the starting point for a particular musical...

Shapeshifters' 'Lola's Theme' cover artwork with Positive logo

From its beginnings as a fortuitous sample to dominating Miami’s WMC and topping the UK Singles Chart, ‘Lola’s Theme’ has become one of the most popular house anthems of its time, and gave Shapeshifters a 20-year career that is still flourishing to this day. Carl Loben talks to one half of the duo, Simon Marlin, about its creation and impact

In 2003, the post-millennial landscape for UK dance music was as rich and varied as it had ever been. UK garage had somewhat fallen away...

Scott Garcia 'A London Thing' artwork

UK garage pioneer Scott Garcia released ‘A London Thing’ in 1997 as a kind of signature track for the burgeoning scene. For this month's Game Changer, Rob McCallum speaks to the DJ/producer to learn the story of an enduring UKG anthem
 

When Scott Garcia's ‘A London Thing’ was released in November 1997, it shot an arrow through the heart of a generation of clubbers in the...

Game Changer: DOUBLE 99 ‘RIPGROOVE’

Double 99's ‘Ripgroove’ helped ignite the speed garage scene in the late '90s, and went on to gatecrash the pop charts and break down mainstream doors for sub-rupturing club tracks. Amid a renaissance of UK garage, Rob McCallum speaks to Tim Deluxe and Omar Adimora about the game changing track’s timeless quality

Few tracks have had such a long-lasting impact on UK dance music culture as Double 99’s ‘Ripgroove’. An instantly recognisable blast of tight, shuffling drums...

on a ragga tip xl recordings

Lifting the vocals from Jah Screechy’s reggae standard 'Walk & Skank’, SL2’s‘On A Ragga Tip’ surfed the hardcore rave wave at the turn of the 1990s before crossing over to bring breakbeats and bass into the pop charts. The track has transcended genres and styles to stand alone as an enduring dance classic. Joe Roberts calls up Slipmatt, aka Matt Nelson — the ’S’ in SL2 — to learn its story

‘Ey ey ba day ba wadladie day’ The opening lyrics to SL2’s ‘On A Ragga Tip’ immediately come up when you type its title into...

Artwork depicting 'Lunatic Harness' record sleeve

Released in 1997, μ-Ziq’s ‘Lunatic Harness’ mixed jungle and out-there electronica in a way few had heard before. Here, Mike Paradinas talks to Ben Murphy about the influences that went into creating this genre-meshing gem, and his new album 'Magic Pony Ride'

“THE PIRATES were the only way you could get to hear the jungle stuff,” says Mike Paradinas, aka µ-Ziq, reflecting on the mix of influences...

How X-Press 2’s ‘Lazy’

Released in 2002, a dream collaboration between UK house heroes X-Press 2 and Talking Heads' David Byrne, ‘Lazy’ lit up clubs and the pop charts alike. Here, Dave Jenkins talks to the group’s Ashley Beedle, Rocky and Diesel about how the track transcended generations and genres to become a timeless hit

“Who even writes a bloody dance tune called ‘Lazy’?” laughs Ashley Beedle. Fellow X-Press 2 founders Rocky and Diesel chime in with the chuckles, as...

Mason 'Exceeder' album cover featuring a wrestler in a mask and cape

When Mason first released ‘Exceeder’ in 2005 it was a B-side. But its fuzzy bassline and gated trancey notes garnered a legion of fans, and it became a key building block in the pre-EDM electro-house scene. 17 years later, he shares its story

“You might go to the same restaurant many times, but do you always order the same dish?” grins Iason Chronis, the artist most commonly known...

Ultra Naté’s house anthem ‘Free’ went from club anthem to international pop hit in the late 1990s. Broken by Louie Vega at the 1997 WMC...

It's precisely 9am in Baltimore. Ultra Naté — her real name — is raring to go. “It's not super-early,” says the super-professional 53 year old...

Black Science Orchestra’s Trammps-sampling, Frankie Knuckles approved 1992 cut ‘Where Were You?’ marked a key moment in UK house music, and embodied a sound that...

Black Science Orchestra founder Ashley Beedle mulls over last year’s activity and bursts into laughter: “I went to the doctor to get my COVID jab...

The melodic deep house of Maya Jane Coles’ ‘What They Say’ helped put her on the map, and soon went on to be sampled by...

Even if you’ve never consciously set out to listen to ‘What They Say’ by Maya Jane Coles, you’ve almost certainly heard it before. Over the...

The Avalanches’ debut ‘Since I Left You’ is one of electronic music’s all-time classics, a sample-heavy travelogue which charmed the globe in 2000-01. Then they...

There’s a phenomenon which takes place when you ride the Shinkansen between Tokyo and Kyōto. Bulleting past Mount Fuji at 199 miles per hour opens...

Influenced by emerging electronic techniques and the rave scene, industrial outfit Coil's third album 'Love's Secret Domain' is full of trippy, drug-fuelled dichotomies and collaborations...

“I remember thinking, ‘What the fuck have we made?’” Danny Hyde says of Coil’s ‘Love’s Secret Domain’ — known as ‘LSD’ — which turns 30...

Producing under the alias Renegade, Ray Keith delivered an instant classic in 1994's ‘Terrorist’, one of the most recognisable jungle tunes of all time. Its thumping chopped...

“It's so far ahead of its time that you can play that in the dance now and people still go crazy," says junglist, innovator, DJ...

 

T2 was only 18 when he dropped ‘Heartbroken’: a sweet, infectious bassline tune that rocketed to No. 2 in the charts in 2007. Owing...

In early 2007, far away from the gaze of the London-based music media, a song by a cult local producer began to spread like wildfire...

Coinciding with the release of a major Tangerine Dream retrospective, DJ Mag catches up with Peter Baumann, one third of the band’s classic line-up, to...

One of the curiosities of psychedelia is that, until 1967, American “happenings” had been mostly sound-tracked by electronic music. Then, as soon as acid trips...

This evergreen breakbeat hardcore missive influenced the likes of The Prodigy and the whole of the early UK rave scene. Ben Murphy charts its story...

“I saw that record go from street level and get bigger and bigger, and there was no video for it, no promotion, nothing,” says Renegade Soundwave’s Danny...

As Black Box re-release the original version of their 1989 mega-hit, DJ Mag talks to Daniele Davoli about the birth of Italo house, the dispute...

IT’S often said that behind every hit, there’s a lawsuit. Black Box’s ‘Ride On Time’ is no exception. Loleatta Holoway slammed it for ripping off her...

Buzzin' hardcore classic 'Bus It' by Blapps Posse was a riotous, sampladelic mish-mash of hip-house and rave. DJ Mag talks to its key originators, Aston...