Opus III “It’s a Fine Day”
The birth of our underground brand Factory 93 not only brought on an adrenaline rush reminiscent of the renegade warehouse era of raving—on which Insomniac was founded—but it also had us thinking back to all the people, places and parties that made this whole operation possible. And with that came a burning desire to crack open our collection and dust off the classic records we couldn’t live without. Through our From the Crate series, we break out both seminal and obscure cuts alike, imparting some knowledge in the process.
It’s about a feeling.
For all of the details and intangibles that make “It’s a Fine Day” such a genuine ‘90s rave classic, most of them pale in comparison to the feelings it evokes.
Arriving in 1992, as the rave phenomenon gained a stronghold in the American underground, “It’s a Fine Day” was a sonic ray of sunshine whenever dropped in a dingy warehouse somewhere across the country—and around the world—throughout that year.
With pristine house pianos and lush, swirling synthesizer arpeggios propelled on a dense, roiling rhythm, the song’s emotional center is served by Opus III vocalist Kirsty Hawkshaw.
Composed of Hawkshaw and former members of rave collective Spiral Tribe (Kevin Dodds, Ian Munro and Nigel Walton), Opus III’s refined take on dance music made a considerable impact with the release of the group’s debut album, Mind Fruit.
Originally written and recorded a cappella by UK artist Jane and championed by DJ John Peel, the Opus III version of “It’s a Fine Day” was an immediate sensation, soaring to the top of the Billboard US Hot Dance Club Play chart and peaking at #5 on the UK Singles chart.
“We met in the woods at a Spiral Tribe rave,” Hawkshaw told UK presenter Jonathan Ross in a 1992 interview on how the group came together. “I was just sort of wandering off on my own, and Kevin (Dodds) was up a tree at the time, and he was taping bird noises on his DAT tape recorder,” she explained of the sounds that would end up on “It’s a Fine Day.”
The track’s ubiquity within the global underground was enough that it would become the basis of another rave classic from the very same year: Orbital’s “Halcyon.”
“It all started just messing around on a Sunday evening. I just sat down to try and make a pop record—not for release or anything like that, just messing around,” Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll explained in a 1993 interview. “I sampled the Opus III bit. We know Kirsty anyway; she’s a friend of ours. I just thought that would be quite funny—I was just amusing myself, really. And then, by the end of the evening, first using the sample and then taking out all the silly bits that I’d put in to make a pop record, I actually quite liked it and recorded it then and there.”
“I was thinking, ‘Should we do it,’ but then why not? I don’t think it had been sampled up to that point, so that’s quite good,” Hartnoll added about using a then-current hit in a new Orbital track. “It’s quite funny because we’re using obscure samples all the time, so it’s funny to throw in something really unobscure.”
The track’s cultural impact was emphasized with the iconic music video, which featured Hawkshaw interpretive-dancing into the camera and would find heavy airplay across MTV and various music video outlets around the world.
“It’s a Fine Day” exists in the early ‘90s pantheon of tracks that will forever epitomize the international rave scene of 1992—the class of tunes that flirted and often connected with the mainstream enough that its influence would be felt across genres, the charts, and pop radio for years to come.
