Chicane
There's a place for everything and everything has its place, a clever person would probably say. Round pegs in round holes, square pegs in square ones. Chicane's Nick Bracegirdle is the kind of guy who shrugs his shoulders at such suggestions.
You'll know the name Chicane, no doubt, for the chart- busting "Offshore". You'll know "Offshore" a sumptuous slice of Ibiza chill bubbling with horizontal piano and throbbing with late night bass - from it's umpteen outings on everything from "Gardeners World" to "Grandstand" or from the floors of every happy hands-in-the- air night to the purist underground four sessions. Still think square pegs fit into the corresponding holes?
It all began when Nick was 11 or 12 years old. While on holiday he heard music like he'd never tasted before drifting from a nearby cafe. "What the hell is that?" he thought to himself. It turned out to be "Oxygene" by Jean Michel Jarre.
"At the time, I was studying piano and guitar classically," he says "It was like I was just playing music, it didn't really make any sense. That one record changed everything for me."
He scrimped and saved and eventually bought a couple of cheap analogue keyboards and the messing around began. He did the school thing. Did the art school thing- emerging with a distinction in graphic design. Throughout that time, any money he had went into his studio. Then he heard "Anthem" by M25 rave heroes N-Joi.
"It was full of piano and really cool chord changes," he smiles. "It jumped out because they'd captured melody and also had this big dance floor thing going on. Somewhere along the line it's been imprinted in my brain to try and walk that tightrope of credibility and mainstream crossover."
After a short lived graphics business which he set up with three mates from college ("It was a nice idea in principle but we just ended up doing stationery for Mr Smith the builder who didn't appreciate our ideas for circular business cards.") and a soul- destroying stint in a quick printshop, Nick decided he'd rather earn nothing and have a good life than do something he didn't enjoy.
Along with a long-time friend, they pressed up 1,000 white labels of a track called "Right Here, Right Now". A kind of big beat front-runner, it used the same Fatback band sample Fatboy Slim used for his track of the same name. Within a week of sending the record out, Disco Citizens found themselves in the A&R offices of four major record labels. They signed to one of them and "Right Here, Right Now" went Top 40.
A few twists and turns later, Nick, now known as Chicane, parted company with his record company and set up his own Modena label. The first release was an EP, which featured "Offshore". In its remixed form with, as Nick describes it, "A trance missile up its arse," it exploded.
DJ Alex Gold's Xtravaganza label won the second demented signing frenzy of Chicane's career and the record hit the Top 20 in December 1996. The following summer the tune took over Ibiza.
To date, "Offshore" has sold over 100,000 copies in the UK alone and appeared on upwards of 130 compilations.
BUT that's a while ago, what about now? Chicane has stayed with Xtravaganza. He and Alex are old friends from college days. His last single, "Saltwater" with Maire Brennan of Clannad, flew straight into the National Charts at No.6 last July.
Reworking the wibbly classic, "Harry's Game", it kicked up a storm in the clubs and has subsequently appeared on nearly every single one of the summer dance compilations.
Maire re-sung the original for Nick and bit by bit the track took shape, slowly turning, with the full support of Clannad, into an epic dance floor belter. It's as inspired as Todd Terry's reinvention of Everything But The Girl or Armand Van Helden's "Professional Widow" makeover.
But there's more. As Chicane/Disco Citizens, Nick has re-mixed a raft of artists from BT to Everything But The Girl. Recently his work has included the likes of, wait for it, B*Witched and Bryan Adams. Unlikely bedfellows yet Nick smiles as he describes it as "an interesting way to get different people to listen to what you do."
The B*Witched mix- which came about through Nick's association with their producer, pop svengali Ray Hedges, gives the girls' new single, "Blame It On The Weatherman," a Chicane sheen. The work on Bryan Adams' "Cloud Number Nine" is more radical.
"The original version has a kind of country and western feeling to it," says Nick. "I basically stripped off all the guitars, the drums, the bass and reworked the chords."
Next thing you know his mix is the preferred radio version, which settled on Radio One's A List.
"People have this idea that you're only capable of one thing," adds Nick. "I want to do everything from film scores to pop music, I've never been one for music snobbery."
And the future? There's a new album in the pipeline which follows his 1997 debut, "Far From The Maddening Crowds" and with Xtravaganza signing a deal at the beginning of 1999 with Sony Independent Network Europe, Chicane looks like being a world-wide concern.
And of course, everyone is already banging on his door for a remix. The bottom-line? Expect the unexpected.
"Yeah, expect that," laughs Nick. "I will do what I want to do. It just happens what I want to do, seems to work. It's a bit of luck really innit?"
Not really, no. Feel the quality, then tell us it's just luck.
