There was a time when Rephlex could do no wrong in my eyes. In the late 90s they released so many gems. My favourites include the especially retarded stuff like Bodenstandig 2000’s Maxi German Rave Blast Hits 3, Chaos A.D’s Remixes and Freakwincey’s I Farted. I also adored DMX Krew’s We Are DMX album and Cylob’s Living In The 1980s and Rewind - when those two made pop it was uniquely clever and fun. Fuschimuschi’s Super Sexy Lady was cool  and, yeah, Lektrogirl’s I Love My Computer has many moments of extreme genius too.

I don’t know if it was me sheepishly following fashion but by 2002 that scene seemed too retro (lol) and it felt like an incestuously chinstroking closed shop of egos and geekdom. These days I realise every scene’s the same and none of that matters and now I love all those 12”s again.

Here’s a long out of print track from their more unashamedly retro back catalogue that showcases why most plugins don’t match Roland analogue synths*

RAILWAY RAVER - PUMP UP THE HOUSING BENEFIT
and here’s another
RAILWAY RAVER - I WANT TO HELP U, ROLAND

* It’s an issue that I spend a lot of time thinking about.

Are you married?
Are you occupied?
You got kids?
How about HIV?

DETROIT IN EFFECT - R U MARRIED?

How the hell did that happen? At 3am I was having the worst night in recent months. The Korsan was empty and the manager said if Melanie Houston didn’t stop playing techno he’d… well… I didn’t stick around to find out. Things changed. Fast forward 90 mins I was having fun and… OMG… the manager was dancing along too!

Anyway back to 3am… I missed my DJ set due to technical problems and was in a stinking mood. The few that came were leaving and by then there were just 10 people. I was in such a bad mood even my reassuring friends were unable to offer comfort - a lot of them had gone - sob, sob, etc.

It was pretty bleak but as the Korsan emptied out leaving just the Night Slugs crew I stopped focusing on everybody else and started focusing on the only thing that was reality - the music - it was suddenly getting REALLY good when GUNIT played. I came on and had a blast spinning back to back with Jam City, Charisma and the star of the show Melanie - that girl is crazy and fun - she was the party. I played Chimo Bayo, Adult, Black Devil Disco Club, DIE, Fast Eddie and… er… Miss Kittin and the Hacker. She played horrible shit which just sounded SO right. Even after the lights went on she kept playing track after track and we kept dancing for at least an hour.

At 4.30 we were so danced out that we had to take the needles off the decks to stop her playing. That couldn’t stop her - she started playing a skipped CD glitch?!? (or maybe it was static) and cross fading a rhythm and filtering and EQing the sound into the most amazing minimal beat - for five incredible minutes. It reminded me of that Viz cartoon character, Ravey Davey, who danced to pneumatic drills in the street or Tires in Spaced with zebra crossing beeps. I felt like I was on drugs. In fact, maybe I was, perhaps somebody put something in my drink??? Back to bed now.

Mixes from JAM CITY and MELANIE HOUSTON now on Divshare.