Andi Durrant reveals his picks for best dance tracks as he expands popular radio show into live warehouse parties

BORN in Covid lockdowns, this musician’s passion project has transformed from archive to radio to now sell-out raves.

The Dance Music Archive was born when DJ and journalist Andi Durrant started to digitise, categorise and upload his rich archive of interviews, recordings, flyers, vinyls and memorabilia that was stored in his attic.

Andi Durrant’s passion has turned into a hugely successful music sceneCredit: Supplied1990: Orbital – Chime

His website has since become a definitive online resource, chronologically recording the history of UK dance and club culture. 

Then, in 2023, Kisstory – the UKs biggest commercial radio station, announced the Dance Music Archive would become part of their weekend programming. 

The show, hosted by Andi, airs every Sunday between 7 and 9pm showcasing all time anthems and forgotten classics.

The radio show has now expanded into live events with 3 sell-out daytime warehouse parties already taking place. 

Ahead of the next Dance Music Archive  live show on April 5 at Project House in Leeds, we caught up with Andi and he’s compiled a playlist of 10 tracks from each year 1990 to 2000 – the most exciting and innovative decade for youth culture in the UK.

The radio show has now expanded into live events with 3 sell-out daytime warehouse parties already taking placeCredit: Supplied1990: Orbital – Chime

Recorded onto a cassette tape in a makeshift studio under their parents’ stairs after a trip to the pub one afternoon, brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll’s debut single is one of the most important early electronic records to come out of the UK.

Its simplicity is part of its beauty, and the brothers went on to be massively influential over the next 30 years.

They’ve released seminal tracks like Belfast, Halcyon, The Box and Satan, provided soundtracks to movies, and their 1994 televised live set from Glastonbury is seen by many as a turning point in UK music and culture.

With their trademark head torches and dark silhouettes behind banks of keyboards, they’re instantly recognisable, and have played at most of the world’s biggest festivals and events. It’s also the record I saw the new millennium in with, when Orbital played the midnight set at Cream 2000 new year’s eve party at the Pier Head in Liverpool, so it will always hold a special place in my collection. 

1991: The Prodigy – Charly

It’s strange to think this record received a negative reaction when it came out in ‘91. Music critics dismissed it as cheesy novelty music for kids and almost wrote The Prodigy off before they’d even started. To be fair, this early rave track (which samples a very British 1970s public information film) did spawn a whole raft of copycat records like Trip to Trumpton and Rhubarb and Custard, but that only served to pique the interest of a load of young kids like me.

With the benefit of hindsight we know that Liam Howlett took The Prodigy from small-time rave act to one of the most exciting, ground breaking and celebrated acts electronic music has ever seen. It’s also a chance to give a mention to the mighty XL Recordings – one of the most important independent UK labels who built their roots in rave before signing the likes of Adele, Dizzee Rascal and MIA. 

1992: Utah Saints – Something Good

Tim and Jez (Utahs) are genuinely my favourite people in electronic music, and two of the best humans you could ever wish to meet. I knew and loved their records as a kid listening to the radio in my parents’ car, but as a spotty 16 year old tea boy, working for free at Kiss 105 in my hometown of Leeds, I was lucky enough to get to know them in person where they really took me under their wing. They taught me valuable lessons in both the music industry and life in general, and in later years we shared a studio in one of the rougher parts of town. 

Something Good samples Cloudbusting by Kate Bush and it peaked at number 4 in the charts back in 92, but younger people might be more familiar with the 2008 re-release with that famous video of the running man dance in the working men’s club. 

When your heroes become your friends, it’s sometimes easy to forget their immense talent and influence. They are pioneers of early UK electronic music alongside the likes of The Prodigy and KLF, and even toured with U2 on a global scale, so it was a real pleasure to ask them to play our first ever Dance Music Archive party this time last year, where they delivered a set that people are still talking about 12 months later. 

1993: K Klass – Let Me Show You

Made in a disused nuclear bunker on the outskirts of Wrexham, Let Me Show was the antithesis of the grey, depressing and frightening cold-war era the K Klass studio had been built for. Originally a 4 piece group of producers and DJs, their main aim was to make music that could be played at the Hacienda in Manchester, and from humble beginnings, they became one of the first big crossover UK dance acts, scoring a stack of top 40 singles and working on music for the likes of Janet Jackson, Kylie, The Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Whitney Houston, Rihanna and many more. They even bagged a Grammy nomination and were managed by James Barton who went on to launch legendary Liverpool club Cream. 

Russ and Paul are still producing and DJing 30 odd years later, and in fact when I played with them at our Dance Music Archive takeover event in Ibiza last year, they were saying they’re actually busier and more in demand now than at any point before. Rightly so. Let Me Show You is a prime example of classic piano house. 

1994: Goldie – Inner City Life

Drum & Bass or Jungle as it was back then, is probably the first truly British electronic movement and scene, and one of the innovators of that whole sound was an unlikely renaissance man from Wolverhampton. A working class kid from the Midlands who grew up in the care system, became a breakdancer, respected graffiti artist, musical pioneer, and then Hollywood actor. He founded the hugely influential Metalheadz label with Kemistry and Storm, and in 1994 released a 21 minute long piece of cutting edge music called Inner City Life. It was the first track from his debut album Timeless which to this day is one of the most important UK electronic releases. It sounds hazy, lazy and summery, but also dangerous and threatening. It’s a genuine masterpiece. 

In a career that spans nearly 3 decades now, I’ve never met or been in the same room as Goldie, and I’m happy for it to stay that way. To me he’s a hero, and Inner City Life was the record I choose to play as the last ever track on Galaxy FM when it shut down in 2011. 

1995: Underworld – Born Slippy

Born Slippy is a very strange paradox of a record. It’s a properly banging hard techno record that would sound just as at home in an underground Berlin basement club, as it would sandwiched between Dirty Dancing and Mambo No 5 at a wedding in Halifax. I can’t think of any other record as uncompromising as this that’s also filtered its way into the national psyche of the country. 

The beauty of course is in the short little breaks between the relentless beats when those lush and warm synth chords cascade over Karl Hyde’s poetic madness. Made famous by its inclusion in the soundtrack to Danny Boyles legendary film Trainspotting, it feels like a record that could only have been made on our weird little island, and it’s all the more special for that. 

1996: E’voke – Arms of Loren

A real personal favourite of mine, Arms of Loren is a very special record that’s followed me around throughout my life since I first heard it on the Ministry of Sound Annual 2 which I got for Christmas in ‘96. Many people of a certain age will wax lyrical about what a legendary and influential compilation album that was, and it got a whole generation hooked on dance. Despite its melancholic lyrics, it’s one of the most uplifting records I know. I wore out at least 3 vinyl copies from playing it at every one of my early DJ gigs across the North of England in the late ‘90s, and despite never having been a massive hit, it’s always a surprise to hear how many people know all the words off by heard. 

Marlaine, one of the singers on the track, actually came to our Dance Music Archive party in October last year and I had the privilege of stopping the music and asking everyone to sing along – the sound of 1000 people singing her record at the top of their voices was pretty emotional for her and a moment I’ll never forget. Cynics might call it cheesy, but I think it’s just one of the most purely joyous dance tracks ever. 

1997: Chicane – Offshore

There’s usually just a couple of moments in people’s lives when a piece of music stops them dead in their tracks and makes every hair on the back of their neck stand on end. The first time I heard Offshore on the radio as a 16 year old was one of those. It sounded SO different to anything that had come before it, conjuring up images of far away beaches, golden sunsets and hedonistic parties. I sent my dad out to buy it on his lunch break while I was at school, and he also became a lifelong Chicane fan. 

This was a 9 minute long instrumental trance record that held its own in the charts against the likes of the Spice Girls, Whitney Houston and (bizarrely) The Smurfs. 

Offshore instilled a love of trance in me, and it’s a track that proves electronic music can be as emotive, musical and intelligent as any piece of classical music. In a weird full-circle chain of events, Chicane (Nick Bracegirdle) became one of our first clients at my production company This Is Distorted where I’ve worked with him in my day job for over a decade now and I’m honoured to call him a good friend. 

1998: Faithless – God Is A DJ

The obvious choice when you’re doing a list of 90s classics is to include Insomnia by Faithless from 1995, and it definitely was another of those records that shaped mine and many people’s lives, but God Is A DJ is – for me – one of Rollo, Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz’s greatest moments. In that same full-circle thing as Chicane, I’ve been lucky enough to work with and get to know Sister Bliss from Faithless for many years now, but I don’t think I’ve ever told her how important her music has been to me.  

1998 was probably the pinnacle of the UK super club era, when every city centre across the land had 6 or 7 huge nightclubs, all full to bursting every Friday and Saturday night. The whole nation had gone dance mad, and it really did feel like a kind of religion for a lot of us. God is a DJ tapped into that zeitgeist, and although it’s now tinged with sadness to hear the poetry and voice of the late Maxi, it really sums up the era. This is my Church.  

1999: Basement Jaxx – Rendez-Vu

Much like Faithless, Basement Jaxx are one of those bands that transcended the dance and club scene to became a proper festival-headlining live act. Named after the club night they ran in Brixton, Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton released their debut album Remedy in 1999 which included massive singles like Red Alert, Jump and Shout and this one – Rendez-Vu – their most successful track to date, peaking at number 4 in the UK charts. 

It came out slap bang in the middle of the last long hot summer of the 90s, and with that flamenco-style guitar, vocoded vocals and heavy drums it really feels like the soundtrack to the last party of the greatest ever decade. 

2000: B15 Project – Girls Like Us

You can’t put a list of influential and important British dance tracks together without including some UK Garage – a homegrown scene that soundtracked the summers towards the end of the ‘90s and the start of a new millennium.  B15 Project were a duo from Birmingham (B15 being their postcode) headed up by Angus Campbell – the cousin of UB40 frontman Ali Campbell. Girls Like Us isn’t the coolest or most underground UKG record, but with its silky smooth production, and distinctly British sound it conjures up long hot summers of a more innocent time. 

The DJ’s sets are hugely popularCredit: Supplied