So, keen to be involved, I got a lift up and went to Vicos for the first time. Straight to the middle floor, where I handed the CD... to the wrong DJ. A very confused techno aficionado (possibly one Pete Donaldson?) kindly suggested that The Rockafeller Skank may not fit in with his set and pointed me in the direction of the bottom floor, where Skibunny, a club-within-a-club, had just started.

In the next ten years, I'd attend Skibunny around 200 times. The club would move from Vicos to Auntie Annies and become pretty much the only way I'd ever spend a Saturday night in Belfast. No one else mashed up daft electro, party hip hop, old-skool indie and scuzzy rock quite like Tanya and Mark. No one else got the party started quite so hard. 2manydjs hadn't quite been invented at this stage, so as far as I was concerned what Skibunny did was utterly unique. In fact, it was. More’s the point, I met and hung out with some of my best friends at that club. We always had fun, occasionally embarrassing ourselves through the medium of daft antics and silly dancing. We couldn't get enough of it.

Then they wrapped it up. Suddenly, Saturday evenings were spent either at home or doing something a lot less fun than what I'd become accustomed to.

As part of the compensation package, Tanya and Mark started to remix, reworking their/my favourite local acts - LaFaro, ASIWYFA, Oppenheimer et al. Even better than that, they'd kick start Skibunny - the band.

12 years of my life, right there. Sign posted by nights out in their club, their first remix, their first gig. In a way, it's all been building up to... this week, really - the release of Skibunny's debut album, Hugs.

Now, as you'd expect, after years of hounding them with requests and generally being an unavoidable feature on the Skibunny dancefloor, I got to know Mark and Tanya quite well. I'd get to work with Mark and still rate him as the best DJ I've ever shared a bill with. Honestly. Myself and Tanya would become... good friends. 

I'd get to go on an adventure with Tanya - hitting Coachella in California. I put myself through Ted Leo in the blinding sun in exchange for her company during the first ever gig by Gnarls Barkley. We'd both go a wee bit mental during Daft Punk's first go in that crazy pyramid. Good times.

Point is though, now that I consider them good friends, there's a fair chance they'll never know just how much I love their album. For a start, I can't even review their live shows for ATL, let alone their recorded music - that wouldn't be appropriate, as you can imagine. And no matter what I tell them, they'll always assume, as a good friend and a polite sort, I'd have "said it was good anyway".

Probably true, but it IS good. In fact, it's incredible. Dark and sweet in equal measures, musically all over the place yet somehow as "complete" and together record I've heard this year. I can't stop listening to it. And I know I'm not alone, a good pal of mine (who notably, had never laid eyes on Tanya or Mark) also nabbed a promo copy and can't get it out of his CD player. Thing is, I wouldn't have thought he'd have had any interest in "that type of thing" either, but I guess he just knows quality.

So what do you reckon, then? Would I say it’s good even if I was secretly disappointed? If YOUR mates made a record, would you tell them it's good, forgetting what you really think? Possibly. So with regards to my real feelings on this album, I guess only I know the truth, eh?

Anyway, do yourself a favour, give it a chance. No obligation to love - that'll happen of its own accord. I promise.