1993·2023 Remixes: Kasabian, Front242

Last Saturday, April 22, 2023, the new remix of Kasabian’s Rocket Fuel by The Prodigy was released exclusively on Record Store Day. However, few people know that exactly 30 years ago on the same day, the legendary The Prodigy remixes for Religion by Front 242 also took place! In this article, we’ll take a look back at these 30-year-old tunes and share some interesting details.

Long-time fans of The Prodigy may remember that Kasabian covered their top-hit Out of Space on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge back on October 11, 2004. This cover was later released as a B-side to the Kasabian’s Cutt Off maxi-single. It’s worth noting that Kasabian’s own Serge Pizzorno had been a fan of Liam Howlett’s talent since The Prodigy’s debut album came out.

Serge Pizzorno: I discovered the Prodigy through Experience, back in 1992. There used to be a rave record store in Leicester called 5HQ – quite a frightening place, a bit like in Human Traffic. We used to hang around in there. I think they were playing Charly: I bought it, took it home and played it on my decks for days. It just didn’t really sound like anything else. There was a tribal quality to the beat. Somehow it was aggressive like punk – it had an edge that other things around the time didn’t. But it also had a pop sensibility. It really felt commercial even though it wasn’t.

Nearly two decades after releasing the ‘Out Of Space’ cover, just prior to the release of Kasabian’s seventh album, The Alchemist’s Euphoria in 2021-2022, Serge Pizzorno shared a demo with Liam Howlett that would later become known as Rocket Fuel. Howlett was deeply impressed by the track’s energy and feel.

Liam Howlett: Serge played me the demo a year or more ago and I mentioned to the dear chap I wanted to smash it the fuck up… That is how it came about!

Continuing our series of articles to commemorate the events and releases of ’93, we thought we’d also take a look back at the remixes from 30 years ago! You can read our previous article from ’93 series here: https://theprodi.gy/1993livebeats/ and https://theprodi.gy/winditup/

Front 242 – Religion

It’s worth noting that exactly 30 years ago, on April 22, 1993, Front 242 released Religion, which featured two fantastic mixes by Alex Paterson (who remixed ‘Crapage’) and two glorious bangers by Liam Howlett (who remixed ‘Religion’). Liam Howlett’s fresh sound was radically different from all the “kiddie rave” (as the band’s sound was called by critics) that The Prodigy had been making before. The Prodigy’s mastermind definitely reached his new level, and ‘Religion’ was one of Liam’s first works when he decided to leave the rave scene and try something new, darker, and heavier. Howlett at the time had been wanting to disassociate himself from the toytown techno.

Liam Howlett: We just felt it was time for a change. I think the first thing I wrote which was slightly different…I did a remix for Front 242. And this was the start of the second level. It was like changing the formula of how I always wrote music and not using so many samples, basically just bringing a real darker side to the music.

As previously mentioned, the single ‘Religion’ by Front 242 was released on April 22, 1993, on the Red Rhino Europe and Epic labels and contains two different mixes by The Prodigy: Bass Under Siege Mix and Trance U Down Mix. In 1997, Liam spoke with great warmth about the track, which gave his creativity a new lease of life.

ATN: What was the Front 242 song you did the remix on?
 
Howlett: It was called ‘Burn You Down’. And I basically did two mixes, both really dark. One was like a real heavy sort of techno remix and the other one was like a dark break beat vibe. They were both sort of quite demonic in a way. And basically what happened after that is I started work on Music For The Jilted Generation, the second album. That was like, no rules. It was like, right, I’m gonna make an album I wanna make and hear now. Because when we first came out, we didn’t get slagged off but we didn’t get the respect we deserved from doing that type of music, the rave style of music. To be honest with you, it was good when we were doing it. But looking back on it now, it became really monotonous. I much prefer what we do now by a long shot. It didn’t really have a lot of substance to it but it was important because it was the foundation of what we were doing. All Prodigy music has always been about the beats and the groove of the tune. That’s the foundation of all the songs.

It’s clear that Liam’s love for his own tune didn’t disappear over time, and 20 years later, a piece of ‘Trance U Down Mix’ was used as live filler during the band’s live performances.

It’s interesting to note that there is actually a third version of The Prodigy’s ‘Religion’ remix that few people know about. Glenn Cattanach made it unofficially, but it was eventually released officially on the Roadkill! 1.06 compilation back in 1993. The remix, called Glenn Cattanach’s ‘Prodigy’ Mix, is a lesser-known gem for fans of both Front 242 and The Prodigy. Glenn Cattanach is known for his work with various DJs throughout the United States, creating mixes and medleys. Despite his success in editing and mixing, he has never been a working club DJ. He always preferred to be behind the tape recorder or computer, not behind the turntables.

Jesus Jones – Zeroes & Ones

In addition to ‘Religion’, another remix was released in the same year, which also marked Liam’s change of direction – a remix of Jesus Jones’ Zeroes & Ones.

Mixmag (September 1993): Liam’s latest thing is techno. He has done, without any question, the two finest hard dance remixes so far in 1993. The first, ‘Religion’ for Belgian new beat stompers Front 242, was immense, terror hard, techno genius with breakbeats welded in like titanium rivets. And the second, ‘Zeroes And Ones’ for sonic rockers Jesus Jones, was an epic boombastic mother of a tune.
 
“Jesus Jones was a hard decision to do,” he says, sitting amid the chaos of his living room. “[Jones’s singer] Mike Edwards phoned me up quite a few times and gave me quite a lot of respect and I like that. I think Jesus Jones are pop and they are commercial but they are similar to us because they’re really sort of just a bunch of guys. And they’re in the same position as I imagine we might be in a year’s time because they are a rock band but they’re using technology and they’re not being accepted by their rock fans so much anymore and maybe in a couple of years’ time we won’t be accepted by the rave scene anymore.” He is a thoughtful man Liam.
 
Liam Howlett is closing the boundaries between techno and rave. His remixes remain, even now, the only truly successful fusion of the genres. So this is where Liam is now. He got rich staying one step ahead

The Prodigy Versus Jesus Jones Mix of ‘Zeroes & Ones’ was released on Jesus Jones’ eponymous CD single in the summer of 1993 via the labels Food and EMI. By the way, one of our All Souvenirs’ team members 10 years ago made a video edit for this remix for his video-set, so for those who like the remix more than the original, we suggest watching it together with the official video. Check this out!

Magi & Emanation – Everybody Say Love

But Liam’s Jesus Jones remix was not the last in that year. In addition to working on the new single One Love, Liam also remixed a one-hit project The Magi & Emanation with their then-widely-known rave anthem Everybody Say Love. As Emanation herself wrote on YouTube, she did not want to fit into the music industry: she just “gave it a try and then slipped off to better things”. The remix was released on debut single in July 1993 on several British labels.

Few know that this remix was not the first for this track. According to Emanation, the initial version of the remix was the track that everyone now knows as Rhythm Of Life. Apparently, the producers did not like it because it was too heavy, and Liam made a second version, which eventually came out on the single. Liam later added the first version as a B-side to the first Jilted-Era single One Love, which is why it is not on the Earthbound whitelabel. Emanation laughed that despite not performing at Glastonbury, her voice was massively blasting through the crowd there!

Emanation: The “One Love” single by The Prodigy has a B-side called “Rhythm of Life” — that track is actually the first remix they submitted for my song, and my label asked for another version, and chose the second. I actually liked the ‘Rhythm of Life’ one a little more, probably cause it has my vocals all through it. If you put in ‘Rhythm of Life’ and watch it live at Glastonbury via YouTube, in this live clip I can even pretend I played at Glastonbury festival as my voice is booming out from the main stage!

You can imagine how shocked the producers were after listening to this remix, especially considering that just a year earlier, the band had released such good-natured hits as ‘Charly’, ‘Fire’, ‘Out Of Space’ and ‘Wind It Up’.

The Prodigy were already very popular at the time, so the producers of the ‘Everybody Say Love’ single were extremely happy to receive a remix from Liam. In addition to the official video for the original track, an official video was made for the remix as well, which was also regularly played on MTV. It is worth noting that the official video with the remix is shorter than the remix itself, coming in at exactly 5 minutes long. To create the video, the intro and outro were simply cut. However, a few years ago, a homemade video edit of the full 5:39 mix surfaced on the internet, which was a montage of the old MTV rip.

Despite this, an official clip with the full remix does exist. The label created a completely new video cut, including some alternative scenes, literally three years ago during the COVID times.

Interjectionally, we recently stumbled across some rare photos from the music video shoot – we hasten to share them with you.

Incidentally, much to the dismay of our team, ‘Rhythm Of Life’ is represented with a misspelled title (as ‘Rhythm Of Live’) on all available streamings! It’s quite frustrating that this mistake hasn’t been corrected for several years.

Automation – Speedway (?)

The above mentioned Mixmag article also mentions two other remixes: Made In 2 Minutes (originally by Bug Kann The Plastic Jam), which was released only in 1994 (we’ll talk about it later) and the remix of the well-known Speedway by the Automation band.

Actually, there’s still no information available: whether such a remix was actually made but not released, or if the Mixmag authors confused the remix with a new track of the same title from the upcoming album…

In addition to the new remix, this year also saw the release of Liam’s long-awaited collab with the D.O.G. band, which we’ve published an article about before. Check out our write-up about DOGZ OR GODS, if you want to dive really deep into this collaborations…

SBER/QIWI (RUS): 8950008190б

Liked it? Take a second to support All Souvenirs on Patreon!
Get more articles and high quality audio restorations.