Binary Finary — 1998 (Paul van Dyk Remix)

A single patient melody that climbs, resolves, then climbs again. Matt Laws and Ricky Chopra's original was already extraordinary; Paul van Dyk's remix stretched it into a canyon of anticipation and turned it into the record every serious DJ owned on vinyl by mid-1999. This is the 4am cue: last record of the night, house lights still off, room already knows exactly what is coming.

Binary Finary was a Coventry duo who had never released a record before '1998'. Matt Laws was 19, Ricky Chopra 20, and the pair produced the original in Laws's parents' spare bedroom on a Roland JV-1080 and a copy of Steinberg Cubase VST. They mailed a DAT to Positiva A&R Jason Ellis; it was signed within two weeks.

The original mix by the duo themselves is a straight-line uplifter in F minor at 138 BPM. Paul van Dyk's remix — cut in Berlin the same summer — tightens it to 141, layers the lead across three detuned oscillators (Access Virus A, Nord Lead 2, and a sampled JV-1080), and inserts the drawn-out second breakdown that made it a closer rather than a peak-time record. Gouryella's Ferry Corsten and Tiësto cut a competing 'Gouryella Remix' the following year that came within a hair of eclipsing PvD's version; DJs still argue about which is definitive.

Reached #14 on the UK Singles Chart in August 1998, a genuine shock for a pure instrumental trance record with no vocal hook. Voted #2 in Muzik magazine's 'Records of the Year 1998' (behind only Stardust's 'Music Sounds Better With You'). Judge Jules made it Essential New Tune on Radio 1; Sasha closed with it at Space Ibiza that August.

• UK Singles Chart#14
• German Dance Chart#2

• 0:45The lead motif enters — deceptively simple.
• 3:10First full breakdown; strings only.
• 4:30The melody transposes up an octave. This is the moment.

• Original Mix (1998)

  Laws & Chopra's own version; still played by purists.

• Paul van Dyk Remix

  The definitive 141 BPM version. Positiva.

• Gouryella Remix (1999)

  Corsten & Tiësto's harder, more urgent rework.

• Kyau vs Albert Remix (2005)

  Later-era progressive rebuild.

The 'melody-that-keeps-climbing' template — one four-bar phrase transposed up an octave for the second half of the breakdown — became a genre convention. You can hear it directly in Ferry Corsten's 'Punk', ATB's 'The Fields Of Love' and Above & Beyond's 'Sun & Moon'. Binary Finary themselves never had another hit near this scale.

• Matt Laws was still working shifts at a Coventry Blockbuster when the record entered the UK Top 20.
• Paul van Dyk's remix was completed in 36 hours to hit the Positiva release deadline.
• Binary Finary re-recorded the track annually — '1999', '2000', '2015', '2018' — none matched the original.