Bleep

Richard Sen has been immersed in dance music for over three decades, producing, remixing, and DJing all over the world, and witnessing crucial moments in the scene’s continuum. If there’s any one person to recount the history of UK dance, it’s undoubtedly him. With the first release of Ransom Note’s new Dance Music From Planet Earth sublabel, he remembers the optimism of early 90s rave and the gauzy layers of fantasy its tracks are wrapped in.

While telling the story with a trim ten tracks scouted from record stores back in the day, the generously extended runtime of Dream The Dream gives each track room to breathe. The almost eleven minute opener ‘Tokyo’ from Centuras sets the scene admirably: a slowburn of synth bubbles and icy pad floes, the measured pace of pulsing beats, sprinkling in far flung, new agey chants and woodwinds.

‘V.L.S.I Heaven (Zone Mix)’ similarly characterises the happy go lucky energy of 90s raves cloaked in an oneiric sheen, its resplendent bells and choir synths leading into the propulsive drum showcase of Dream Frequency’s title track where a sample of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares’ ‘Pilentze Pee’ adds mysticality with its dissonant arrangements. Orr-Some’s ‘We Can Make It’ has all the trappings of a classic house track with its distorted sines, dramatic string stabs, and deep bass, meanwhile acid synths add a tangy kick to As One’s ‘Isatai’ amidst its woozy synths and tropical percussion.

Richard Sen constructs an ode to UK dance music with Dream The Dream, sonically narrating a time of musical ingenuity, perseverance, and good plain fun in the name of raving.