North : Dream 17

Well, I think I've bought a lot of albums over the course of my life so far, and 

for many of them I can no longer say when and where or why I bought certain albums. The majority of the early albums certainly had plays on the radio, especially the night broadcasts were helpful. At the beginning of the 90s, CDs began to play an increasingly important role, for me it was still cassettes and vinyl at the beginning of the 90s. A little bit later, I also had a CD player, tapes and vinyl initially lost their importance. Vinyl wasn't really gone, cassettes came back to me in the last few years.

The big record stores like WOM and Virgin had a CD playing station where you could listen to the stacks of CDs that you had previously searched for. However, you always had to ask an employee to swap the CDs. No problem if you had a direct hit. It was stupid when after a few notes it became clear that this was nonsense. Please swap again. Sorry.

An album that I can identify exactly, quite accurately in fact, is “North - the Sound of the Dance Underground”, on the then relatively new DeConstruction label. It was the first album that I bought in a very simple record store immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 10th, 1989, with my welcome money of 100 DM (which every GDR citizen got).

Since there was no internet back then and I hadn't read any music reviews, it was probably a blind buy, chosen based on the cover and the acid smiley on it. “Voodoo Ray” was probably also an argument. In addition to this classic, for me Annette with “Dream 17” is the hit on this compilation, which basically consists of tracks by Mike Pickering (Quando Quango, T-Coy, later M-People), A Certain Ratio people, and Gerald Simpson. Annette is also a collaboration between Simpson and T-Coy and “Dream 17” is the only track that was released with this composition.

“Classic old school acid house track, with is bubbling acid hook, fantastic bass-line and almost haunting vocals which combined with the other elements gives a melodic and soulful vibe which really draws you in. Dream Slumber is also a great instrumental version. A real slice of quality house through and through that was a real anthem in the Hacienda.” -

- John Marcus/Discogs -

Dream 17, also released as a single 12" and now pretty unaffordable on Discogs, here from the also very good compilation

 Richard Sen presents This Ain't Chicago - The Underground Sound Of UK House & Acid 1987 - 1991, released January 1, 2012