1998 by British trance pairing Binary Finary is one of those true club classics. Relentlessly remixed and instantly recognised on a dancefloor, its appeal hasn’t diminished. The men responsible for the track, Matt Laws and Stuart Matheson, have continued to turn out swelling, euphoric productions and remixes alongside nurturing a label.

Binary Finary has now become a trio of sorts, with our very own Sasha Vatoff joining the Australia-based Matheson in developing a live show. While Laws keeps things moving abroad, the live set went down a storm at Sensation White on New Years Eve. It’s returning to Melbourne this month for Neon Circus: National Institute Of Trance alongside Brisbane gun tyDi, who recently turned out his own take on 1998. ITM caught up with Matheson to hear about Binary Finary in 2010.

We last saw the Binary Finary live show here for Sensation White NYE in Melbourne. Was that a memorable night?
It was very memorable. A lot of hard work went into creating to content for the live show, and it was great to be back on stage again. It had been a while! Was amazing to get such a positive reaction from the crowd.

Have you made any tweaks to the live set-up since then?
Yes, new tracks have been remixed, new Binary Finary tracks added and we have added in some other live elements to the mix. We are now using two touchscreen JazzMutant Lemurs which we’ve customised to do a few of the things we want to do. Still more development to go.

Are there any live electronic acts that you looked to for inspiration in developing this show?
We didn’t have anyone in mind when we created the live set. We had this long running ideal of how we wanted to perform live, way back in 2004. We sat down and discussed where we’d like to be moving forward and put the base into effect. Of course seeing acts like Orbital and The Prodigy, are incredibly interesting, and provide that extra impetous to keep developing and developing.

So, Binary Finary is now a crew of three. How does that affect production? Is there a follow-up to The Lost Tracks in the works?
Production is as easy as sharing files via the internet. It really hasn’t affected the writing process at all, in fact in certain ways it has helped. No arguments in the studio, no one hogging the main computer and so on! There is a follow-up album planned, and it will be new tracks, not long lost tracks this time. We are really excited about it and loving working on it.

There have been several revamps of 1998; is it still exciting to see that classic track evolve?
Yes, its always exciting to see how others interpret the song. Really amazing to hear some of the great remixes that have been organised by us and Armada, bringing the track bang up to date.

You’re locked in for a ‘classics’ set at Neon Circus. Can you let us in on any classics we’re likely to here?
Well the secret it out! We aren’t DJing. We decided to swap the decks to perform our live show. We’ve got some remixes of some classic tracks as part of our live show. I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait and see which ones we play out from our remix pool. As our set is so flexible with how its structured, we can leave those decisions to the last minute.

tyDi recently did a Binary Finary remix alongside Dennis Sheperd; are you looking forward to playing with the young gun at Neon Circus?
Yes, the remix is great. Absolutely looking forward to playing alongside him, and also looking forward to him buying me a beer (or two)!

Is Armada Music still an exciting stable for Binary Finary to be aligned with?
We are looking forward to working with the Armada machine for the re-release of 1998 on April 19. We were lucky that Armada believed in the track still, and feel it has a very good home there.

What kinds of sounds within trance are inspiring you at the moment? Do you feel there’s a move back to some of the more classic elements?
We have always been about writing the music that we want to write and to listen to out at a club. We gather inspiration for a variety of places, from other artists to simple things like walking the dogs on a Sunday afternoon. It might sound odd, but whatever works, works!

Binary Finary play Neon Circus: National Institute Of Trance at Billboard the Venue on Friday 2 April.