Think music and the year 2000 and no doubt the sounds of UK garage fill your ears. ‘Battle’ one of the biggest dance floor fillers of the time was down to one producer, Jason Chue. The leading release off his 11-track self-titled debut album under the moniker of Wookie, the song with its gospel-like hook became an instant breakthrough single, propelling Chue into the mainstream stare.

Just like ‘Battle’, running throughout Wookie is the spiritual lyrics of lead vocalist Lain and it is this marriage with Chue’s production and constant injections of Lain’s uplifting soul—‘Joy My Pride’, ‘Success, Time’—that give the album a real sense of unity.

Chue’s synths with Lain’s scats and adlibs make opener ‘Get Enuff’ the club banger that it was born to be. The oscillating sounds of ‘Down On Me’ resonate through in hypnotic fashion, while ‘VCF’ haunts. Elsewhere the clever layering of the production clearly showcases the 2-step complex of each instrument. Take ‘Scrappy’ for example. The keyboards draw you in and the tisk-tisk of the hi-hats apear before the drums kick in. Lastly the infectious vocals usher the beat to drop. Garage couldn’t have a more blatant anthem.

The instrumental of ‘Back Up To Me (Back Up Back Up Back Up)’ transports the listener to the warm place with its Spanish acoustic strings, while the Mediterranean theme is revisited on ‘What’s Going On?’ — an impressive cover of Soul II Soul’s ‘Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)’ by way of castanets.

There’s not a dull composition on this classic piece of 2-step education. Deep base and mellow music make Wookie as much something to chill to as to party to. Realising very few can create a sound of such quality that still stands the test of time. Even when the genre itself has seen better days and the clubs may have all gone back to hidden places, in Wookie the music lives on.

Words Chinwe Ojielo