By 2005, this was the sound that filled most clubs in London and across Europe. Minimal at its best was Latin-infused, hypnotic and seductive. But sometimes the tracks were so stripped back it sounded risible. I wondered what motivated a producer to go into a studio to produce hum-free scraps of sound, only really of use as tools for DJs or folk out of their minds on ketamine, the scene’s drug of choice. The best description of minimal’s paltry percussiveness – which has been used so often the source seems irrelevant – was “the sound of a skeleton wanking in an oil drum”.