Carl Cox has put out his version of ‘The Phantom‘ by Renegade Soundwave, a late-80s dance record he’s been playing since 1989 and has repeatedly named as one of his all-time favorite tracks. The release lands as part of ‘RSW Rewired,’ a project reworking the influential UK act’s catalog through label Jack Said What.
Renegade Soundwave emerged from the UK’s late-1980s electronic underground and built a reputation for ignoring genre lines entirely. The group fused sound system culture, heavyweight bass, breakbeats, house, industrial textures, punk attitude and dub production into something that arrived well ahead of its time. Tracks like ‘The Phantom,’ ‘Ozone Breakdown,’ ‘Women Respond To Bass,’ ‘Probably A Robbery,’ and the album RSW In Dub are now considered foundational to UK electronic music’s development.
Cox first came across ‘The Phantom’ at a rave in Biggin Hill, played by DJ Frankie Valentine, and says the track reshaped how he thought about dance music. “This record blew my mind,” he recalls. “It was like indie meets rock techno punk. What I love about it is that when those guys made that record, they didn’t give a fuck. Even today, there’s nothing that sounds like it at all.“
He’s played the original in Ibiza for years, and when the RSW Rewired project came together, Cox signed on early. He kept his version under wraps while testing it out live, running it through festival sets and his residency at [UNVRS] in Ibiza over the summer before its official release.
Cox’s rework opens with a breakbeat pattern pushed slightly faster than the 1989 original, before a surging bassline and dubbed-out, hauntological toasting refrain take over. The original track famously sampled The Clash’s ‘White Riot,’ cleared by the band at the time. For this update, Barry Ashworth — a known Clash fan and frontman of long-running outfit Dub Pistols — delivers the chant, giving the track a fresh vocal anchor before it builds toward its climax in the second half.
There’s a bit of dance music trivia tied up in the original too: ‘The Phantom’ was sampled by The Prodigy on their early rave cut ‘Everybody In The Place.’ Cox has recently been playing vinyl sets alongside The Prodigy on their Warriors Dance tour, which makes the timing of this release feel less like coincidence and more like things lining up.
RSW Rewired Rolls On
The RSW Rewired series was set in motion by founding member Danny Briottet, who brought new music and the idea of reworking the RSW back catalog to Jack Said What. Rather than functioning as a standard remix compilation, the project has artists working from newly recorded stems built specifically for each track, giving them room to rebuild the songs from the ground up while keeping the original spirit intact.
The series kicked off on September 10 with Leeroy Thornhill’s breakbeat take on ‘Ozone Breakdown,’ followed by Nookie & Binary State’s version of ‘Thunder.’ Gaudi & Don Letts followed a week later with a dub-heavy rework of ‘Wax Wane’ that leans into King Tubby territory. Cox’s ‘Phantom’ rework marks the fourth installment, with more reinterpretations still to come.
“My rewire isn’t leaving my side,” Cox said of the track. “No way, no how. When I play it, I just watch the dancefloor to see what they do with it. If it doesn’t get played this year, it’ll get played next year. If it doesn’t get played next year, it’ll get played the year after that.”
Cox’s rework of ‘The Phantom’ is out now via Jack Said What, with a vinyl pressing due in mid-October.
