INTERVIEW Renaissance Director Geoff Oakes
Author: Mark Burton
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Who better to give a fascinating insight into the celebrated release than Renaissance Director Geoff Oakes- It's an amazingly diverse assortment of styles that you wouldn't find on a compilation today. "Yes...I mean there are two factors there. One is that Sasha and John, because nothing like it had ever been done before, they had like the last three or four years of total classics to choose from in British clubbing and I think that they kind of took that baton and ran with it really well and the selection of music was unprecedented at that time. What has happened since of course, and I suppose it's hard to make comparisons to today but typically now you will have thirty compilations released within a month in the UK alone all fighting over the same material, the same repertoire and fighting for exclusives and it's a lot harder nowadays. I'm not saying it was easy then but the guys just did a fantastic job of...given that they had such a wide choice of music at that point."
And now the million dollar question, what are his favourites- "This is the second time today that I've been asked that question and I'm not finding it any easier to answer!" confesses Oakes. "I mean the obvious classics on there such as Leftfield, Bedrock, Age Of Love, Moby and so on. But I think for me it's the records that I still to this day get goosebumps when I hear them because they remind me of that club at that time. I know it'll be things like the Disco Evangelists De Niro, Sasha's Hysterics Talk To Me, Fishbone Beat Always and of course the ultimate sort of end of night classic at Renaissance was Kim Mazelle's Was That All It Was. So if I had to pick any it'd probably be those three or four tracks. But then I look and see things like Memphisto and Spooky and I think just the whole album really! There are a couple of things on there I do think urgh... maybe listening to them now they haven't stood the test of time well and obviously we've replaced two tracks, the two M-People tracks, ironically Renaissance, the one that they sort of named after the club... and How Can I Love You More- as well has come off. I guess we just felt that in the overall context of capturing that moment in sort of British clubbing history they were the two that sort of just stuck out in a way."
"They were replaced with two fantastic tracks. The OMD track at the time it was titled as by The Liberator but it's actually OMD ...that's gone on there, Stand Above Me. And an Anthony White track called I Can't Forget You and it's the Fathers of Sound mix. The Fathers of Sound were really involved with the club at that time and we're only too happy that has been included now and Sasha and John chose those two tracks to replace (them)."
He still thinks its sounding good ten years on. "The sound's a lot crisper. In terms of the overall judgement on that sound and how relevant it is today interestingly enough, I guess I am a little biased but I think it still sounds up to date. I still enjoy playing it. Some of the press in the UK, the response has been phenomenal. Even things like Loaded Magazine which you wouldn't even anticipate would want to review it have made it album of the month, the best mix compilation ever and those kind of comments have been coming back you know and it's really, really nice to hear that so I guess I'll let other people be the judge of it. I would say that for me it still sounds completely relevant and deserves the accolades that it gets as one of the best mix compilations of all time!"
Demand for the compilation has remained even a decade after it on the shelves. "There's a lot of people out there that want this album who never got the opportunity to buy it Tags