Cratedigger Essentials: Graeme Park & Mark Knight

Cratedigger Essentials: Graeme Park & Mark Knight

5 August, 2010 | 6.01AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Videos: graeme park, mark knight, toolroom

Given dance music’s focus on the new-new-new, a lot of older music can fall by the wayside. But there’s nothing like the feel of chancing across a classic track that never sounded as good as it does right now. Cratedigger Essentials is a feature highlighting those timeless gems that our guest selectors turn to again and again.

It was only natural that we’d turn to Mark Knight and Graeme Park, seeing as their new mix CD, ‘21 Years of Gio-Goi’, is all about timeless classics. Running from 1989 to 2010, the mix selects one track per year, and is mixed in chronological order.

Graeme Park tackles the period from 1989 to 1999—an era he’s well familiar with, given that he was a resident DJ at Manchester’s legendary Hacienda Club from 1987 until 1997—including classics from the likes of Joey Negro, Inner City, Kim English, and DJ Sneak.

Mark Knight, who has done so much to define UK dance music in the past decade, takes us from 2000 until now, with a set including DJ Rolando, Underworld, Soul Central, and of course a few choice Toolroom selections.

Read on to see what each selector chose as their essential selection from the mix, and why.

Graeme Park

LFO, ‘LFO (Leeds Warehouse Remix)’ [Warp, 1991]

The first time I heard ‘LFO’ by LFO it blew my mind. Then it blew my speakers. Literally. “Low Frequency Oscillator,” I thought. “Of course!”

I had just witnessed the biggest, baddest bassline there ever was and ever has been. And probably ever will be too!

From its swirling synth, bleep lead, atmospheric intro through its Detroit-influenced rhythmic 909 drum patterns—and that immense sub-bass that gets deep into your soul and consumes you right down to your very core—this epic piece of simple house has stood the test of time.

It’s been a constant in my sets for 20 years. 20 Years! And it still raises the roof and sounds as fresh as the first time I heard it.

In fact, as club sound systems have improved and got bigger and better over the past two decades, ‘LFO’ now sounds even better than it did in 1990.

The first time I played it at the Haçienda it actually shook the club to the rafters. Glass cracked, plaster crumbled and everyone’s hands raised even higher than they did before, as their normally wide open, crazed eyes closed in unison as they all went on a journey into the unknown. The Haçienda’s sound system actually sounded half decent for once.

LFO rewrote the rules and things have never been the same since. I just had to include it on ’21 Years of Gio-Goi’.

People have tried in vain to match the glorious sub-bass many times. I’m not sure anyone ever will. It’s one of the simplest but most effective house tunes ever. Period.

Mark Knight

Dennis Ferrer & Jerome Sydenham, ‘Sandcastles’ [Ibadan, 2003]

My pick is ‘Sandcastles’ by Dennis Ferrer & Jerome Sydenham. The first time I heard it played out was at DC10 in Ibiza. It was one of “those” moments.

It totally blew me away. It’s a stunning piece of music, a classic in every sense of the word—clever, emotive and timeless. I literally, from the dance floor, phoned Simon Dunmore, who had signed the record, and said I would love to remix it.

They were dream parts to work with, and to this day—I am sure I can speak on behalf of Martijn, who I did the mix with—I can say it’s the remix we are both most proud of. I still play it all the time. It stands up as well now as it did when it was released, which of course is all credit to Dennis and Jerome for such an inspired piece of music. Every fan of dance music needs this record in their collection!

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