Virgo (album)

Although Lewis and Sanders made no effort to promote the album, its idiosyncratic music and the mystery surrounding the band's identity turned it into an underground cult classic over the years.

Although it remains largely unknown, Virgo is now recognized as an essential release among house enthusiasts, and is considered by some as the greatest album of its genre.

[1] In high school, only Lewis and Sanders stuck together, a time when they acquired a drum machine, a Moog synthesizer and other equipment used by the burgeoning Chicago house scene.

"[1] Lewis and Sanders first approached Larry Sherman of Trax - a label that had a capital role in the development of house music - in 1984 or 1985, as the genre was beginning to take off.

Sanders and Lewis produced the album at Rax Trax, where they met Rick Barnes (who ran the studio) and Derek Brand, members of the Nicholas Tremulis Band.

When they approached Trax Records, Sanders and Lewis called themselves M.E., a reference to their initials, "with a possible nod to the Gary Numan tune of the same name as well.

"[1] As the Radical Records album was solely attributed to Virgo, confusion arose over the band's identity as it "gained traction over the ensuing years.

Virgo was remastered and re-released as a double 12" and CD in 2010 on Rush Hour Records, as part of their House of Trax reissue programme.

"[1] Fact called it a "deep post-acid" album, and wrote that despite being similar to other contemporary house releases, "it stands alone, and its cerebral but generously groovy evocation of the urban nightscape has never been matched for elegance or acuity.

"[5] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian described it as "music you might make the day after a drugged-out bacchanal – wistful and contemplative, shot through with a creeping, contagious melancholy.

"[3] Joe Muggs described Virgo as "archetypal house music through and through: it is design as much as it is art, absolutely attuned to the proportions and metabolism of the human body in a technological society."

[4][6] Richard Carnes of Resident Advisor felt that "Going Thru Life"'s "lolloping piano riff" showcases the duo's "visceral approach to music making."

He also considered that the Ride material - included as the album's second side - "should really be looked upon as a different entity to the first half", as it features a "darker and more vocal-led direction to their first EP."

"[7] The publication listed Virgo as the second best album of the 1980s, with Joe Muggs writing: It's a metaphor I've used before, but when you hear something as perfectly designed as this, it's like getting an amazing chair – one that is comfortable, beautiful, refined and usable every day.

[6] Virgo was also included in The Guardian's 2007 list of the 1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die,[citation needed] and The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion.