Journey Into Dubland

He’d already made his name in postpunk with the band 400 Blows, and made a couple of decent acid house era tracks as The Moody Boys — but in 1990 Tony Thorpe was really cooking with gas. As regular studio collaborator and remixer for The KLF he made some enduring classics, and with The KLF’s Jimmy Cauty (then also still part of The Orb) cooked up this EP diving into the deep intersection between breakbeats, dub reggae and burgeoning rave. The relentless sampled opera singer hook of “Free” made it the big breakthrough track, the hypnotic Stone Roses / Jungle Brothers mashup “Pumpin Dumpin” remains brilliant in its simple potency, and the dreamy sunrise house pianos of “Lion Dance” would see it remixed for US dancefloors by Tommy Musto and Frankie Bones. But the whole EP was greater than the sum of its parts, a fantastic work in its own right and a major milestone in a long and eventful career.