ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

While wandering through the Natural History Museum in London, producers/mixers Jon Sutton and Barry Jamieson were immediately fascinated by a Darwin exhibit. It was 1987 and the dance scene was exploding all over the country. For two childhood friends from Manchester, music was calling. Sutton and Jamieson saw the new wave as a spiritual happening, therefore the formed Evolution. They spent the next two years sequencing keyboard rhythms and structuring an ambient sound; in 1989, Evolution founded their own label, Positive Vinyl. They were the fortunate ones to release the debut single from Sasha, "Came Out of Nowhere" and it pushed them to the forefront of the European dance movement.

The nineties were successful and momentous for Evolution. They had a brief deal with Deconstruction and received airtime on MTV Europe. The Everybody Dance EP appeared in 1993.

Look Up to the Light was issued two years later. Corporate ethics annoyed the pair, so in 1996, Evolution established Fluid Recordings. It would become one of the decade's biggest promoters of dance music, not to mention a stable label home.

Sutton and Jamieson oversaw the direction of artists like Jimmy Van M., Christian West, Ritmo, Mana and Andy Ling while also making room for themselves as world class DJs.

Their remixes for John Digweed, Boy George, BT, Mark Bell and Lost Tribe catapulted Evolution's star power into the mainstream. Their live club shows were fabulous, very animated and energetic. It wasn't until the new millennium that Evolution got serious about releasing their own music again. In 2000, Sutton and Jamieson set the foundation for their experimental, infectious dance collection. Two years later, Evolution emerged with Unnatural Selection on Nettwerk. Aside from the Evolution tag, Sutton and Jamieson also record under the monikers Bluefish, Escape, JB and Arrakis. ~ MacKenzie Wilson

The aptly and wittily named collaboration between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, FFS released its first album in 2015, but the project was over a decade in the making. The bands expressed their mutual admiration for each other starting in 2004, shortly after Franz Ferdinand released their self-titled debut; Sparks' Ron Mael gave the Scottish band a song, "Piss Off," that they could work on together. However, the groups' busy schedules prevented them from making the collaboration a reality until 2013. Both bands were playing in California, and Ron and Russell Mael happened to run into Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos when he was en route to the dentist to have a broken tooth repaired. The chance meeting reignited the connection, and the acts shared songs with each other for a year and a half before recording them together over the course of two weeks. The singles "Johnny Delusional," "Piss Off," "Collaborations Don't Work," and "Call Girl" preceded FFS' self-titled debut, which was released in 2015. ~ Heather Phares