REWIND: N-Trance - 'Set You Free' (original)

It's this weekend's Friday Banger... An d a very well known one this time. Every week I go back to the singles charts from 1995 and take a look at the week's new entries. During the week of January 14th 1995, N-Trance re-entered the chart with their classic 'Set You Free', which went in at #6. This song instantly evokes memories of going to a 'Holiday Activities Club' at the Olympiad sports centre in Chippenham, where parents would leave their kids during the school holidays. As well as swimming, roller discos, football, arts and crafts and other things, one of the activities was a "dance class". So whenever I hear this song, I remember running around in a large circle with lots of other kids as the beat kicked in. The very definition of being young and running free means that whenever I hear this song, I also remember a time when life was in front of me and all yet to come.

After signing 380 Records in the early 90s, duo N-Trance decided they needed a female vocalist to sing on future records. Sixteen-year-old Kelly Llorenna was discovered at a college common room, and as she made her way to meet group members Dale Longworth, Mike Lewis and Kevin O'Toole, the three of them quickly wrote the song 'Set You Free' so that she could have a song to perform. 380 Records initially pressed 500 white label copies of the record in 1992, but due to troubles within the record label the song was never released as a single. After signing to a new label, All Around the World, 'Set You Free' was released as a single in 1993, but only reached number 83. The next year, the song was re-released with a (rather terrible) new radio edit (the Lost Soul Mix) and the song charted higher this time at number 39. The original version was given a re-release in 1995, and after benefitting from strong television and radio play, became a huge hit single. The song has since been the subject of various ill-fitting remixes over the years, but no version could possibly eclipse the power of the giddy original mix.