Freemasons

Brighton's electronic and dance scenes have long advanced in cycles. Once early-millennium teen pop eclipsed electronica, the city's Freemasons—Russell Small and James Wiltshire, who borrowed their name from a cherished hometown pub—moved to restore house and club music to its prior stature. Quickly gaining ground as a production outfit, the duo soon handled remixes for Kelly Rowland, Beyoncé, and Solange Knowles.

From their 2005 launch through their breakthrough year of 2007, they delivered several charting singles in the genre—“Watchin',” “This Time Baby,” and “Love Is on My Mind”—all included on the album Shakedown, which surfaced early in that year. Their Unmixed collection arrived late in 2007, gathering prior remix work into a release that performed strongly and sustained their momentum on dancefloors in both the U.K. and the United States. Those initial productions caught Beyoncé's attention and led her to enlist the pair for remix duties on her B'Day album.

In 2008 the duo reached the U.K. Top 30 with the Katherine Ellis-featured single “When You Touch Me.” The following year brought the Sophie Ellis-Bextor collaboration “Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer),” which peaked inside the Top 15 and appeared on their Shakedown 2 album. A remix EP surfaced in 2010, after which four years passed before Shakedown 3 arrived in September 2014, featuring further contributions from Katherine Ellis and Joel Edwards.