It's been a long while since I came across any hidden gems, such a long time in fact that I had seriously started to think it was over, that I'd heard every decent forgotten track from my favourite period, and that there was nothing left to discover... and then this popped up.
Roger Sanchez did some amazing remixes in the early 1990s, turning in multiple takes on a song, with great melodic vocals and inventive dubs, often turning a banal song into a club monster.
In the case of Pushing Against The Flow, the tune itself was already pretty good, but Sanchez brought it up to house speed, funked it up, and turned in some incredible, hypnotic dubs. Back in the day, people had more patience. They were prepared to wait for a mix to build and build, because it only made the payoff bigger and better. In this case the crescendo is particularly long with seemingly very few elements, and yet there's always something extra coming in to keep your interest. It just keeps rising and rising.
I have fused together two of the dubs, making a 16-minute mix that really explodes (for me) at the 9'43" mark. I think you need to be in a particular frame of mind to get the best out of it, whether natural or induced, and I can just imagine it being played in a club around 4am.
They don't make mixes like this any more. This is proper house. Listen / download here...
I can't say my fusion was hard to do, in fact it was actually just a simple cut and paste, nothing more, but knowing where to do it was crucial, and you don't feel the transition at all.
I'm so pleased to have found this track, and I've been listening to my version almost non-stop for a week now. Let's hope I never get tired of it.