My Love Affair With House Music

I am first and foremost an indie music fan, and I think about 90% of my listening is held within the constraints of the indie genre. As a teenager, I started to look slightly outwards and began listening to John Kennedyโ€™s X-Posure Radio X show. At 10 PM one night, he played a track that blew my mind.

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John Kennedy is a regular DJ on the predominantly indie radio station, Radio X. He plays a bit of everything, but most importantly, it is brand new. Every indie artist in Britain worth their salt has had tracks played on John Kennedyโ€™s show, and for many such as The Futureheads, The XX, and Kate Nash, John Kennedy was their first radio play.

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I had listened a few times and was becoming used to hearing fresh exciting indie music. I was expecting it when I turned on my radio. But instead of hearing jangly guitars, my ears pricked up to the sound of warm 80s synthesizers and a repeated sound I have never been able to place but is something like the rainforest. I had no idea what would come next, and I was not disappointed by a saxophone riff which I still think could be the most beautiful repeated four bars in music history.

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We are teased with the riff once, and then twice, before the beat kicks in hard. What follows is five and a half minutes of dance music perfection, and if that wonโ€™t make you want to get up and dance, then nothing will.ย 

Hearing 808 Stateโ€™s masterpiece has changed my approach to music forever, opening my mind up to a world of house music, and set me on a journey. Down the raving motorways of Bicep, the strips of Maribou State, and the quiet side roads of Laurence Guy. Although John Kennedy was not playing anything released recently, I am certain that he opened the eyes of hundreds of indie music fans that night.ย 

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Hi, I am Louis, a writer, journalist, and music fan, currently living in Edinburgh.

My main music interests are British indie, dreampop of the late 80s and 90s, and the 80s alternative scene.

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