I have been struggling to find words to say why I like this track so much. In fact I rejected the album on first play, but so happy I revisited it, as it has given so much pleasure over the years.  Luscious strings, opulent grooves, it is was just the right music for our design studio, a great back drop for walking in the Lake District, a perfect recipe for simply chilling out!

Ask the best rappers who their favourite rapper of all time is, and it will probably be Rakim. One of the first rappers to turn rap from cute party chants into poetry. His lyrics are clever, he was menacing and powerful, and yet I never heard any swearing or cussing in his rhymes. It’s a loss that he stopped making music (He should make a come back with the Chemical Brothers, now that would be special). I found it on the B-side of a Double Trouble remix which combined it with The Jacksons, which was fun to play at party’s, but the original stands prouder, and I don’t mourn the loss of the remix after I had one of my record boxes stolen from the booth one night.

The most perfect electronic track ever made. It always strikes that when sampling was in its infancy, the goto play was to sample some news footage or slices of James Brown, yet these guys combined influences from Kraftwerk, Donna Summer and even Ennio Morricone – that’s operating on a totally different level! Such an iconic song, has always been on a playlist somewhere in my life. It is so ubiquitous that the staccato kick drum which was inspired by Donna Summer, would have most of us protesting that she sampled it from them! Crazy electronic heaven!

Right off the back of Zero 7, collaborator Sia, always delivers the goods. This track has the cinematic strings with a rhythmic house feel that leans into my passion. It delivers the mellow vibes in an accessible and pleasing way.

I was given a bunch of Def Jam 12’s when I was a teenager… Run DMC, LL Cool J, and Public Enemy were heavily featured, and kicked off my musical journey. We would share headphones and tapes on the bus trip to school, but House Music took over for me as Hip Hop became more gangsta in the 90’s. But then a weird thing happened… the Belgiums ( “I know right” ) toughened up House and Techno and made a silly kind of poppy thing call “The Sound of the Hoover” (okay not our greatest moment in history)… but then London did what it does best and took all these influences House, Techno, Garage and applied Hip Hop thinking with breaks, bass, scratches and samples… Hardcore Bass was born and then swiftly Drum and Bass… all my faves came into play Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J, Run DMC, Rakim and of course Public Enemy. Perfection! Coming back to those early Hip Hop tracks over the years and I find that they do not age. Particularly with lyrics from geniuses like Chuck D. His bullet driven alliteration, fusing street culture and political influences open our minds to the issues of those days but also combined with a genre defying soundtrack makes this song a must for my list… It’s just a tragedy that the “issues of those days” are still the “issues of these days”.

“You got the one that goes beep beep boop beep boop boop” The Shazam generation will never understand the joy of finding a tune, by badly vocalising the key part of your weekends journey into musical discovery.The real problem is that the most common response was “nah mate dunno that one”. That god like group of 10 dj’s who seemed to pull these records out of thin air were constantly amazing me with turntable prowess and Svengali like knowledge of the future, wowed and impressed me and I most defiantly wanted to be like that. But you had to put effort to gain the confidence of the record shops owners, who only saw that annoying 16 year old who did not play out anywhere. So this track alluded me for absolutely years. It was a track that associated the the most elite of performers and best parties, and was the start of my journey into musical madness!

808 drum patterns, 80’s synth loops and the simplest samples form this hugely influential track that I never even knew about. So, being about 13 I’d take my 50 pence of paper round money down to the local Woolworths – It’s crate digging, Jim. But not as we know it!!! – i’d blow it all on house music LP’s. On those bargain bucket discs were untold versions and snippets of this awesome rhythm intermingled and twisted into all of the megamixes… All I knew was I liked this House stuff, years later the epiphany of discovering the original helped put everything into place. Flowing and moving like a perfectly engineered supecar, this track always invokes the innumerable moments of discovery and enjoyment along the way.

By the Neuromancer of Structural damage… but who cares about that…. Everyone only knew Pennywise. Cataclysmic drums, building and building, growing with pace and purpose until the strings fall from the heavens and the rhythm dances over you like rain drops in the desert… that’s when you can’t stop beaming from ear to. This is the drum & bass I grew up on. Child of the 70’s – nah mate you can keep that when people grab an Atari ST a create gems like this one!