Fancy a classic? With the progressive house revival in full swing (further reading HERE and HERE) perhaps it was only a matter of time that one of the era-defining templates of the genre would get a second look. For ravers of a certain generation, this was the set that blew our minds. Sasha and Digweed had already broke the mould two years earlier with "Renaissance: The Mix Collection", a lavish three-disc spread that attempted (and succeeded) to bottle some of the lightning of their legendary sets at Mansfield's Renaissance. Northern Exposure appeared and then there was the deluge--two more "Northern Exposure" mixes and a sea of prog & trance mix CDs by peripatetic male (they were almost always male) DJs.

The "North" mix remains a stunning journey through ambient, breaks, and progressive house. In the promo package Sasha & Digweed talk about the influence of playing in Orlando and elsewhere in the USA and being exposed to the breaks scene and the atmospherics pushing them in a different direction from Renaissance. Kicking off with the atmospheric trip that is the Orb's sample assemblage rework on Keiichi Suzuki's "Satellite Serenade" (still gives me goosebumps). Now that's a proper start to a mix. A chill breaky midsection from FSOL through the brilliant Young American Primitive "These Waves", Rabbit in the Moon, and Ultraviolet building steam. Finally breaking into full-on prog with a sexy William Orbit remix (still a banger) of Fuzzy Logic; William's trademark trippy keys tapping like Morse Code, Erire's shattering vocal folded into Spooky's take on "Water from a Vine Leaf". A grand finale with Banco de Gaia's "Last Train to Lhasa". This was the only mix from Northern Exposure officially released in the US at the time--ours was a single-disc with a cute polar bear lounging on an iceberg. There were whispers that an elusive second mix existed but we had to wait a few years for Napster to get sorted.

The "South" disc is peak hour prog, moving from the trippiness of Dope on Plastic to what was perhaps Underworld's greatest remix - Charlie Hall & Lol Hammond's Drum Club. It's kind of a summa of all that made progressive house so exciting at the time - stuttering vocals, bleeping electronics, the bouncy kick of a 909 and a soulful vocal. Junior Vasquez's whompy take on Pete Lazonby's "Wavespeech" stomps hard, perfectly at home in this mix; belying the genre split between his and S&D's nights at Twilo at the turn of the millenium. A bit of trance courtesy a remix of Banco de Gaia before en emotional ending with Underworld's athemic "Dark Train".

So now it's been all remastered, gleaming and intact (save for Junior's remix and a 2026 remake of "Dark and Long" now solely credited to Darren Emerson), and in various editions. Tracks from North & South are remastered and presented unmixed over four vinyl records. A CD edition includes a 'dubbed' treatment of tracks from the mix; fragments from the tracks wash together in a sort of Laswellian soup.

So who is this for? Rave mums & dads who want to revisit a classic. Kids who might have missed it the first time around. Folks who might want clean vinyl of some of the more pricy cuts. And all of us who welcome the opportunity to revel again in what was a brilliant moment in dance music.

"Northern Exposure" is available in many formats from LateNightTales HERE and also on Bandcamp HERE.