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. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

So who is this for? The kids have already checked the OG on Soundcloud and moved on with nary a raised eyebrow. That leaves the rest of us. Rave moms & dads who want to revisit a classic. Folks who might want clean vinyl of some of the more pricy cuts. 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.