It was at one of these nights that I got the inspiration for the remix. During one of his sets, Makoto played a slightly altered version of the track he had done just for fun. I was behind a wall at the bar in the club and couldn’t hear things properly, but the strings and Conrad’s iconic voice told me it was Golden Girl coming through in the mix. The sound was fuzzy and muffled, but suddenly I got a weird but vivid vision of a very different Golden Girl. It was almost as if the walls were filtering the sound into something different altogether. It was more edgy and restless. To me the track was always a bit tense, there’s a happiness there, but a bit of uneasiness as well. Conrad’s lyrics describe elation, but also anxiety. I think this is why the tune resonated with so many people and went beyond a “big tune” and became an anthem, because everyone knows these feelings and understands them. It’s relatable in a way that a lot of drum and bass isn’t.

Soon after the gig, I asked Makoto for the original track parts which he sent me right away. My idea was to really focus on the tension, to bring out that insecurity in the song. Like all of my personal favourite tracks that I’ve made, things came together fast, I had all the elements going in a day or so, but sadly I had to leave Japan soon after I got 80% of the track done and life got a bit hectic when I got back to Sydney, so I never ended up finishing it until now. A roughly put together version of the original remix was featured on Makoto’s Humanelements 5th Anniversary Mix, but it was far from complete.

Even 8 years later though, I’m still happy with the tune so I’m very glad I was able to revive that inspirational moment and knock it off the list. The new version was just icing on the cake.

Sadly this track will probably never be released, just like the Lenzman remix or Makoto’s own remix, but I’m really happy I finally finished it, and super thankful that Makoto let me have a crack at it!

I played the tune during my warm up set for Commix at Candy’s Apartment in Sydney a couple of weeks ago, which I recorded and have posted on our Soundcloud page. The track starts at around half way through the mix, but I encourage you to listen to the whole mix as there’s a bunch of cool tunes on there as well as a good portion of our own material (which may or may not be classified as cool depending on your opinion!).

You can check the mix out here:

Vice Versa’s warm up set for Commix’s show in Sydney

Big ups to Makoto, Conrad & Good Looking Records for creating a truly timeless drum and bass anthem!