Chicane — Easy to assemble. Story behind his third unreleased album

This is an extraordinary album. In large part because it remained an unreleased third studio album and also because it is 95% stylistically homogenous.

The success of No ordinary morning, Saltwater and Don’t give up, especially the latter, which went to the top of the British charts replacing Madonna (interviewers love this fact), and the entire Behind the Sun album inspired confidence and changed the tracklist of the next record in favour of guest singers. The Xtravaganza label, which raised Nick didn’t like it so much. Yes, in the 90s their views were the same: they released fashionable dance and near-dance music, and Nick was the main trophy of the label back then. He was happy to have his hands untied, but at the same time, Nick claimed that he was interested not only in beach instrumentals, but also in real songs: “People have this idea that you’re only capable of one thing, I want to do everything from film scores to pop music, I’ve never been one for music snobbery.” Xtravaganza was increasingly moving towards groovy and heavy trance. And here was Nick sketching the third studio album with a semi-Balearic and semi-pop house sound.

In defending his interest, Nick became involved in a long-running legal battle with the once-friendly haven. Three years later, after spending a lot of effort and money, he finally managed to regain the right to release music as Chicane.