"Let The Flowers Grow" Pete Murphy & Boy George, Juno Reactor Remix

Sometimes I find myself chasing a sound endlessly that feels half-remembered, half-invented, something hidden in the folds of a song that refuses to stay still. When I stepped into the world that Boy George and Pete Murphy

had woven in Let the Flowers Grow, it felt like entering a world built from shadows and old longing. I didn’t plan to remake anything. I only meant to remix. But the lyrics began whispering back, asking to be unsettled, stretched, reborn. And so I followed it into its darker corners, usually I don’t like to rewrite all the music , only keeping the vocals, but letting it unravel and reassemble felt the only way I could work on the track.

There was one line that kept circling me “I’m the heartbeat of the city, in the shadows I make my home…” That lyric became the compass, the pulse I stitched everything around. I could see them in a Blade Runner city breathing behind them, the neon signs, the hidden spaces, the people that insist on growing where no sun reaches. The remix became my way of answering that line, of honouring its truth. A small confession wrapped in noise and bloom.

And then came the final section, what was the original chorus, waiting in a neglected room at the back of the house: “I’ve been changing, mumma don’t know, let her tears fall, and let the flowers grow.” I’ll admit, those words didn’t catch me at first. They felt too bare, too exposed, like something overheard through a half-open door. But then, without warning, they hit me with the force of something painfully, universally human. A vulnerability too honest to ignore. And when it struck, the music began writing itself, as if that lyric had been sitting patiently, knowing it would make its claim. In that moment, the remix found its final shape, half lament, half liberation, letting its flowers grow out of the quiet ache of being changed beyond what anyone, even a mother, can fully see.

Remix released on Metropolis Records.

stay strange, stay kind,

and keep listening for the pulse beneath it all.

"Beyond the Infinite"

Released 30 years ago october 1995

Simon Watkins artwork

The album was written in a crumbling warehouse in Shoreditch long before anyone could buy a latte there. Back then, Shoreditch still smelled of soot and old paperbacks, still clung to its Dickensian bones if you scratched beneath the dirt.

Kubrick films looped endlessly in that place. Especially “2001, A Space Odyssey”. The title came from its final chapter, “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite”, a doorway into the unknown that felt eerily similar to what we were trying to do with sound.

The core group was small: myself, Mike Maguire, Stefan Holweck, Johann Bley, and a Turnip the Swede.

Ben - Mike - Steffan

Pic Ronnie Randall

Mike deserves special mention. He wasn’t a musician in the traditional sense, but he was one of the top DJs of the time sharp instincts, no ego, and a laser-guided ear for what truly mattered. That gave Juno Reactor an edge others didn’t have. I met Mike at Greyhound Records before Juno Reactor even had a name. He adored the “Psycho Slaphead” 12" vinyl, 100 copies made! And we clicked instantly. Our first track together was “High Energy Protons”, more of an explosion than a beginning.

Otto the Barbarian — my Jack Russell and unofficial engineer — patrolled the studio with devout seriousness.

And Nahoko, the tape op I’d met on a KLF film shoot on Jura Scotland, kept us fed and occasionally sane. She later confessed that the studio was haunted. She wasn’t joking. It felt entirely plausible, especially on her acid.

What truly shaped “Beyond the Infinite” was our desire to feed heads on the dance floor and vanish the rulebook. Throw away all blueprints. Burn the map.

We blended industrial edges, jungle loops, cinematic atmospheres, tribal drumming, wild samples, and huge dynamic shifts. At the time, most electronic music stayed obediently in its lane. We didn’t want a lane. Still don’t.

Bowl Court Studio after the refit by Robert Trunz

Everything was recorded live to a DAT machine, long takes, hands on the desk, pushing buttons, riding faders, slamming reverbs and delays in real time. Instinct first, perfection second. That raw collision of tape, computer, and chaos gave the album a pulse most other records didn’t have then.

Originally, it was meant for NovaMute, but it found a better home with Simon Ghahary and Robert Trunz at the beginning of “The Blue Room” label. Robert brought not just support but new worlds,  Mabi Thobejane, Amampondo,  a rhythm and heartbeat that would later shape the global, cinematic Juno Reactor sound people now know through “Bible of Dreams”.

Looking back, “Beyond the Infinite” joined the underground electronic scene; it tilted it. Nudged it. Maybe even cracked it open a little. It helped shift trance into something that wasn’t merely trance, something still searching for its name. A music that felt alive, unpredictable, and strangely soulful.

stay strange, stay kind,

and keep listening for the pulse beneath it all.

Juno Reactor Ozora Video

Something beautiful happened recently — a small electrical storm disguised as a Juno Reactor show. It’s alive up there again, pulsing and breathing, stitched together from old ghosts and new blood. The latest video Live today @ 6pm UK time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbnAOCS7Lvs) captures something I’ve been chasing for a long time. Energy. Communion. That spark of madness that feels, to me, like home.

It is most enjoyable show since The Mutant Theatre, maybe more! Back then, we were a circus of the bizarre, a travelling hallucination half ritual, half rave. But now, with all the new members joining the tribe, it feels different. It feels family. Like we’re not just performing anymore, but sharing some deeper current that hums through the cables and bones.

I’m still here, at my desk, surrounded by a mess of wires and ideas, working on new material. It’s a strange and diverse beast. the kind of music that I hope will keep your imaginations alive, keep the lights on inside your heads.

Recently, I had the pleasure of remixing Molchat Doma’s "Son". There’s something beautifully bleak and tender in their sound it was a joy to crawl inside it and twist it into my own shape. That one is out now. Next year, there’ll be remixes with Pete Murphy and Boy George two great creatures of the night, each from their own glittering underworlds.

And somewhere amidst all this, my twelve-string guitar keeps whispering songs to me. Every time I pick it up, it seems to write another one on its own as if it’s possessed, or simply remembers something I’ve forgotten. It’s magical, really. Maybe it’s just trying to remind me why I started doing this in the first place.

Until next time

stay strange, stay kind,

and keep listening for the pulse beneath it all.

Ben : Juno Reactor