DJ Mark Knight Turns Dido’s “Give You Up” into a Bona Fide Dance Anthem (premiere)

Tech house heavyweight and head honcho of the Toolroom label, Mark Knight, drops what may be the unexpected dance anthem of the year with his phenomenal remix of DIdo’s “Give You Up”. As a DJ already renowned for brilliant remixes from artists such as Underworld, Basement Jaxx, Groove Armada, and Florence and the Machine, he may well have gone and topped the lot with this remix of a track taken from Dido’s new album Still on My Mind.

With waves of marimba synths crashing on craggy cliffs of pointed beats and shuffling percussion, Knight strips everything from the original to create something that sounds positively monolithic from the off and only gets bigger. When the vocals do come, they arrive like a gentle, warm summer breeze through an open window before the drop shatters the calm and hauls the whole thing back onto the dancefloor. Throughout, Knight sounds like he is having an absolute blast. Building up the tempo with quick, fluid beats all topped off with fractured vocal loops, and brassy synths to create a bona fide dancefloor filler.

Knight says, “when the opportunity to remix Dido came along I jumped at the chance. She has such a distinctive voice that there are almost endless directions you could choose to take it in. It really lends itself to electronic music as well as she delivers some really epic, powerful vocals, so I just tried to harness that and translate it into something that would work in my sets.”

On “Give You Up”, Knight keeps the heart and soul of the track but adds some typical Mark Knight spice to create an electrifying mix that will light up dancefloors throughout 2019.