While the lead track was a loose-limbed indie-rock track with a dub bassline and squalls of guitar, ‘The Phantom’ had a relentless, snapping breakbeat snare like little else of the time, and only sparse vocals. But their next single for Mute, ‘Space Gladiator’, with ‘The Phantom’ on the B-side, was something else. They signed to Daniel Miller’s respected electronic imprint Mute in 1988, and the prevailing acid house sound of the time began to make its presence felt in their output for the label, such as the single ‘Biting My Nails’. The three members of Renegade Soundwave - Danny Briottet, Carl Bonnie and Gary Asquith - had formed in London in the latter half of the ’80s, and shared an appreciation for hip-hop, punk and dub, influences which decorated the industrial, cut ‘n’ paste aesthetic of early single ‘Kray Twins’. “The Chemical Brothers, Grooverider, they say that we were a big influence.” “When you hear interviews with Liam from The Prodigy, he always talks about Renegade Soundwave,” Briottet says. Rinsed at warehouses, in clubs, on pirate radio at the time of its release and for many years afterwards - and by DJs across the board even to this day - its raw funk, explosive mixture of influences and distinctive sound make ‘The Phantom’ universal.Ī favourite of Josh Wink, DJ Marky, Andrea Parker and Photek, it has a broad appeal. ‘The Phantom’ is a perennial dance classic - an early breakbeat track that arrived just as acid house was evolving into its own new UK variant, hardcore. DJs you didn’t even know were playing it. It was a massive buzz, because at the time, it was really real. Then it started to happen, and every pirate radio station you’d put on, you’d hear it, or in people’s cars driving past. We know when something is going to blow up’. I used to give them white labels and they said, ‘Yeah Danny, this is going to blow up. “At the time, I knew all the guys in places like Street Sounds and all those shops. “I saw that record go from street level and get bigger and bigger, and there was no video for it, no promotion, nothing,” says Renegade Soundwave’s Danny Briottet, remembering the phenomenal impact of his group’s rave anthem ‘The Phantom’.