One of my dreams come true in my involvement in the trance scene has been seeing some tracks that have meant the most to me be released. Having been involved with DAT Records from the beginning, I was thrilled to see the lost Crop Circles album released (it was my having seen the promo cassettes back in 1998 that led me to meet label founder Federico Draeke to begin with) and I was delighted to have been able to secure some important tracks for release on the label’s amazing Analog Dreams compilation. But nothing has brought me the joy I feel at seeing a glorious alternate mix of Doof’s amazing track Destination Bom be released alongside other unknown mixes and the original album.

My experience in the trance scene has found me all over the globe at some amazing events and being fortunate enough to spend some time with some of the top producers whose music I was listening to from my early times in the scene in Tokyo starting in 1994. Part of the awareness I’ve gained with the more magical and mind-expanding experiences in the scene is that things happen in mysterious ways and the timing and nature of events is not always clear to us at the time they are occurring. I never anticipated that some of the encounters and events from my early years in the trance scene in London from late ’96 to early ’98 would bring fruit over 15 years later…

Here are my notes from the Doof Remixed and Remastered booklet, explaining how this release came to be – I have both the pages from the booklet reproduced here (you can click to open it in a new page) and the text below the picture in this posting:

Both Federico and I have a strong connection to Doof’s music, having admired his releases and heard him live in our early years in the scene. I remember the first Doof track I owned, ‘We Are Free’, from one of the first trance CDs that I bought, Return To The Source’s ‘Deep Trance and Ritual Beats’ compilation, and of course his track on the first TIP comp, ‘Let’s Turn On’, both of which I got new when they were released in 1995. I was at the Doof album launch in London in November 1996, having first heard him two months previously at an epic all-star Return To The Source party at the Liberty Science Center in New York. I would have the opportunity to hear him perform at several parties throughout the UK and Japan, and as we’d seen each other around at several parties, we knew each other by face but not quite by name (Simon might have introduced us but I’m not sure) and we’d give each other a hello when we saw each other.

There was one special occasion that anchored my strong connection to Nick and his music. Tsuyoshi had asked me to DJ at a party at his London home prior to his moving out in the first days of August ’97. A track or two into my second set Nick came up to me and said that he had a live mix of Destination Bom that would go really well with what I was playing, if I was interested. How could I not be interested?! We cued it up on the DAT player and although it was mixed as part of a live set, I somehow managed a seamless mix from the previous track, and out came the one of the most beautiful tunes I’d ever heard, more of a morning track than the well-known growling nighttime stormer from the TIP single and album. As the track drew to an end that I had not yet heard, I mixed out into the next one; the DAT came out of the player and went back into Nick’s DAT bag, and that was that – one of the most magical experiences I have had as a DJ, one that I could never forget. In my subsequent years of DAT trading, I never met a DJ who had heard of this alternate mix.

Years later, in 2011, I asked Nick if he would consent to contributing a previously unpublished mix of Mars Needs Women that I had in my collection for DAT Records’ charity fundraising project ‘Mind Rewind’. He not only kindly agreed to do so but also wrote a wonderfully insightful story into the track’s history. A couple of years later, when Fede and I were planning our first compilation for DAT, I reminded Nick of his having loaned me that Destination Bom mix at Tsuyoshi’s and asked if he would consider releasing it; he said he couldn’t remember the track but would look for it. He responded not long after that he hadn’t been able to find it. I wrote back saying that unless he had thrown out some DATs he must have it and asked he could check again. The next morning, an email from a file transfer service was in my inbox, with the message, ‘This may be the droid you’re looking for.’ I excitedly downloaded the file and this was indeed that marvellous track from 16 years earlier: soaring, magnificently structured, lushly phrased… every bit as beautiful as I’d remembered.

We already had in our possession a couple of other alternate mixes of Doof tracks, and Federico had the idea that if there were alternate mixes for each of the tracks from the classic Doof album ‘Let’s Turn On’, it would make an outstanding release, a kind of ‘alternate universe’ album. Nick doubted that he had the required mixes but said he’d investigate his archive. Lo and behold, a few days later, just before Christmas 2013, a message and file transfer email arrived indicating that he had indeed found other mixes, including some he’d forgotten about – and some of which he thought were better than the issued versions. As the album of alternate mixes was compiled, we had the idea to issue the ‘remixed’ album together with the original as a special collector’s edition.

And here it is. I am thrilled to be part of the project to make this incredible music available. The musical language expressed in Doof’s tracks has a lush, quasi-orchestral sound that fuses heart-felt harmonic beauty with the ecstatically uplifting. Produced at a time when each artist had their unique palette and flavour – despite clear influences from one another – the music on this release reflects a bygone era of highly individual electronic dance music when the artistic and spiritual mission of the producers was front and foremost, when there was a sense that the movement from which this music evolved and for which it was written had the potential to shift planetary consciousness. It is incredible to recognize how after nearly two decades the creative present-moment energy found in this music continues to move us so deeply.

The enthusiasm, attention to detail, and love with which Nick produced this great music has been evident throughout our communications and preparations for this release. I am so grateful to him for having agreed to let DAT Records issue this phenomenal music and for his graciousness in this process of discovery and preparation. What you hold in your hands is a testimony to his personal and shared creative process and part of a global movement that continues today.

Well –  holding the CDs in your hands is something I highly recommend, as in addition to the amazing music, it has a wonderfully detailed booklet in which the master producer Nick himself writes pages and pages of recollections about the tracks of the album, as well as a simply gorgeous introduction to the release that is so heartfelt and articulates the inspiration that many of us have felt on the dance floor.

You can find the details of the release on the updated DAT Universe Bandcamp page here: https://datuniversebc.bandcamp.com/album/doof-lets-turn-on-remixed-remastered

And here is that amazing, gorgeous, magical track that I first heard now almost 20 years ago… a beautiful remix wonderfully remastered!