It’s hard for me to explain the story of Amateur At Play, my production alias, without referencing 95 North. They were a DJ and producer duo who consisted of two friends called Doug Smith and Richard Payton. Six years ago, I was compiling a 95 North tribute mix – but struggled to get hold of some of their records.
In desperation, I reached out to 95 North and Richard replied. I told him what I was looking for, and he was happy to provide a lot of what I’d requested. He even provided a rare unreleased demo from 1992 for the mix. I ended up doing three, and it spurred me on to try and make music myself.
I personally thought 95 North were massively underrated. For me, they were up there with Roger Sanchez and Masters At Work – with a distinct signature sound on everything they did. And in 1997, they remixed “Love Come Rescue Me”, a song which Lovestation originally released five years earlier.
For some weird reason, this one only came out on a CD promo – as far as I can establish, this was never put on vinyl. It’s a little bit long as far as modern standards go, but I still think it’s one of their more underrated remixes…