Perry O’Neil / Best 2004—2006

Another piece of proper progressive house music alongside Humate is this hour-and-a-half compilation of the best tracks by Perry O’Neil, who is actually Perry van de Vrede. He had the entire toolkit of a young Dutchman: gabber, techno, and trance music. In the early noughties, Perry caught inspiration and within two years had released his best records, confessing that many of them were recorded in just a few hours. Perry had no studio and no synthesisers. He didn’t even have any licensed software—just a laptop, pirated software (Cubase, Reason), counterfeit samples and a mouse. His first demos were heard by Maykel Piron, one of the three future founders of the Armada label. Perry was invited aboard.