For this week’s column, I start with a confession. There was a rave track called “The Anthem” by N-Joi which came out in 1990. I hated it at the time, and I still don’t especially like it now. I find it completely overplayed and I found those chords rather uninspired. New mixes came along in 1998, 2006 and at various intervals since and I can’t say I’ve particularly liked any of them.

Until I heard this one a couple of years ago. This actually appeared on the original release in 1990. It was the Distant Run mix – with none other than Kerri Chandler behind it. He ditches those plastic piano chords, only letting them in for 15 seconds in the second half of the track. And he ditches almost everything else too – only a few vocal snippets remain. He adds in a bassline that makes you want to move from the off, complimented with drums which were already showing the character Chandler is familiar for.

Things chug along nicely until around 80 seconds into the track, when some vinyl noise stops the music and briefly interrupts proceedings. When the song continues playing, the drums have got a bit more life in them than before and these lovely deep chords start playing in the background – I personally think they should be a little higher in the mix, but that’s strictly a personal preference.

It’s hearing stuff like this that (almost) makes me want to get back into making some tracks…