holden & thompson - nothing (silver city dub)

"nothing" was a track that most tranceheads knew of and then mostly the more progressive sounding "'93 returning mix" with it's big reverbed out sound, effected vocals and transfixing melody. dj's like paul van dyk played it in his set consistently for two years and it became holdens big break commercially. fact was the original leaned more toward house than the deeper trance the "'93 returning mix" was played with.it was still rooted within that quirky progressive sound with legato bass but it wasn't anything trancy with it.

as "nothing" was released on loaded records which was a housier label the remixes ordered up by the label came courtesy of m.y.n.c. project and silver city. i hadn't really paid attention to any of these until a mate of mine played the silver city dub in a set a couple of years ago and i was blown away by it's awesome. much like i, he hadn't known about it really before he played it.it was in the loaded 2x12" that he owned for the "'93 returning mix" and the original but as he was putting together a set with housier sounds, this was a perfect match.

silver city took the funky house route with this one and the biggest change was in the bottom end where the legato bassline was replaced a more rhythmic bassline. it still contained the longer bassnotes but there was a certain groove to it. the drumtrack was changed for a steadier drive instead of holden's more random hihat groove, which is a part of the charm but fits more with the rest of his percussion. silver city also uses a couple of keyboard riffs instead of the xylophone lead and reverbed pads and it's much more a sparkly and bubbly arpeggio.

the vocals are worked in loops where "dying, trying" is worked throughout the track along with "it's a long way down / there's no one in this crowd". in the main vocal mix julie thompsons vocal is played straight on top of the loops and it works well. both version also include some vocal sample in the middle of the track that sounds like excerpts from the news but it's more audible in the dub as thompsons vocal isn't on top of it.

i really love this version of the song and i rate it higher than the "'93 returning mix" and on par with the original mix which is the best version of the song.

buy here (junodownload)

note: for some reason juno and other sites have the vocal & dub mix mixed up but the linked to version is the dub and nothing else.