Dreams: The Cathedral Remix Story

Before I touched the sound of Quench’s “Dreams”, I wanted to know what sort of space I was entering.

“Dreams” is a trance classic. That means it arrives with its own identity and with listeners who already know what it means to them. A remix can’t pretend that history isn’t there. My job was to find a way into the track without treating it like a blank page.

The idea that gave me a direction was simple: the inside of a cathedral. A big, cold space, with one huge warm sound moving through it.

Imagine the room first

I kept coming back to that picture before thinking about the sound itself. Not a literal church, and not a grand bit of decoration for its own sake. More the feeling of standing somewhere vast: stone, shadow, air, and one sound with enough warmth and weight to hold your attention.

That image became my compass. It helped me think about what the remix needed to feel like, rather than how to make it shout that it was a remix. There’s a difference. With a well-loved track, the temptation can be to pile on ideas just to prove you’ve done something new. But new for the sake of new isn’t much of a plan.

Respect, to me, doesn’t mean being afraid to change anything. It means knowing that the original already has a place in people’s lives. You’re not there to erase that or compete with it. You’re trying to open another door into it.

Finding my way into “Dreams”

The title gave me the starting image; the scale of the idea gave me a way to judge it. I kept asking myself whether the music belonged in that room I’d imagined. Did it have that contrast between the cold, open space and the warm, central sound? If an idea pulled away from that, it wasn’t helping the remix find its character.

That’s a useful test when you’re working with a classic. A strong concept doesn’t make the decisions for you, but it can stop you from making them at random. It gives the track a centre of gravity.

And it keeps you honest. I didn’t want to make a version that was simply louder in personality than the original. I wanted the Cathedral idea to give “Dreams” a different sense of scale, while still feeling like it belonged to the same piece of music. That balance is the tricky part. Too cautious and you haven’t really made a new version; too heavy-handed and you risk losing what made the track matter in the first place.

The result was “Dreams (Nicholson’s Cathedral Remix)”, released on Magik Muzik in 2018. You can also find the release listed on Beatport.

When the idea leaves the studio

A record has one life while you’re making it, and another once it’s out in the world. You can spend ages thinking about a space you’ve built in your head, then someone else takes the music somewhere you never get to see for yourself.

As far as I know, Armin van Buuren played the remix in his Tomorrowland and Ultra Miami sets, and on the ASOT main stage. I’m careful to put it that way: it’s my understanding of where it was played, not a claim that I can account for every set or stage.

Still, knowing a track built around that imagined cathedral space was played in those settings is something I’m grateful for. The idea began as a way for me to make sense of the remix; then the record travelled beyond my own picture of it. That’s one of the lovely things about releasing music. You make the thing, but you don’t get to decide what every listener brings to it.

What the cathedral means to me

When I think back to this remix, I don’t think first about a technical decision or a checklist of what went into it. I think of that room: cold stone, darkness, a huge sense of space, and one warm sound moving through it.

That was the point of calling it the Cathedral Remix. The image gave me a way to approach “Dreams” with respect, but not with my hands tied behind my back. It let me imagine the space before touching the sound.

I’m grateful to Quench for the original, and to everyone who has listened to my version since it came out. Whether you knew “Dreams” back in the day or found the remix later, thank you for giving it room.

Pull-quote for socials:

“I wanted the inside of a cathedral: a big, cold space, with one huge warm sound moving through it.”