Various – In Order To Dance 5

I stumbled across this CD many years ago, when I was a lanky, spotty 18 year-old whose musical diet up til that point had consisted almost entirely of eurodance and handbag house. I was attracted to the word 'Dance' in the title, and was familiar with Biosphere after 'Novelty Waves' had cropped up on a random euro compilation I once had (Dance Now! 11, I have just rediscovered through searching the database). These two factors unwittingly caused me to be drawn to this double disc beauty, and it's fair to say it is probably in my Top 5 CDs of all-time (and I've owned thousands over the years!).

I had no real idea what 'techno' was up til this point, outside of it appearing as a by-word for anything vaguely bleepy and boshy. This compilation opened my eyes to a sound that has stayed with me for several decades, continually stirring indescribable emotions and synesthetic imagery of unknown worlds.

Personal highlights for me include the following: Mike Dredd's 'Macrocosm', a frankly terrifying opening track, is filled with atonal droning and insect-like claw-dragging sounds that is enough to make your skin crawl. I don't think I've ever heard a track quite like it. In total contrast, 'Infinition' by Quadrant (Basic Channel) is a muffled, hypnotic glide through echoey chords and dreamlike strings. To me it evokes a different landscape on every listen, sometimes natural, sometimes urban, but always empty and human-less. Speed Jack's 'Storm' picks up where LFO left off, with a weird velcroey riff and a haunting whistle-like melody. Basic Channel's 'Phylyps Trak' may be truncated to a mere five minutes, but is still enough to feel like the audio equivalent of being inside a washing machine with its everlasting hypno-beat and metallic stabs. And Carl Craig's 'At Les' is probably the track that brings back so many introspective memories of early adulthood angst, with a beautiful, melodic intro and a jazzy beat to boot. This is by no means a complete reflection of what these marvellous tracks mean to me, but perhaps they are the ones I can hear and feel the most in my mind just by seeing their titles.

A few years later and I discovered In Order To Dance 6, expecting more of the same. I was initially very surprised to be greeted by two CDs of jungle, but by that time the teenage angst had given way to the naïve optimism of young adulthood, so the comparatively chirpy sounds of Justice, Wax Doctor and Alex Reece suited me well and I found another friend in the IOTD franchise. But IOTD 5 will forever be an encapsulation of a rather moody, introspective and ultimately influential time in my life, and I owe a lot of what became of my music tastes to its magnificence.

This was also available as a limited edition with a bonus CD in a cardboard sleeve, cat number RS94036CDX.

It was also released as a very limited edition "light box" - the case was made of pale green translucent plastic and contained batteries and green LEDs! This was depicted on the artwork of the conventional issues. Cat number for this one was RS94036CDXX.