Total pleasure: Uplifting trance led Robert Miles to become a true pioneer

Let's be serious: 'Children' is a work of genius. Although it redefined “over-exposure” so even those who loved it would end up groaning on hearing it for the 3,000^th time, its absolute perfection of structure is undeniable. A couple of years ago, I was preparing a wedding DJ set and drawing for 90s classics, and listening again to 'Children' after not having heard it for the best part of a decade, I was bowled over by the audacity and the technical brilliance of the production, but also a kind of innocence in its pursuit of total, uncomplicated pleasure. Obviously it ushered in an era of formulaic pop-trance but it did it first and best, and it's absolutely fitting that it should have been the global mega hit that it was.

"What struck me about Robert is in a strange way he was just like the track," James Barton, the CEO of Superstruct Entertainment and Cream founder says. "It was a dreamy, beautiful, melodic, easygoing record which really just captured everyone's imagination, and it was no surprise when I finally got to meet Robert that actually he was such a beautiful, down-to-earth, easygoing guy, very quietly spoken. There was never any drama with him, never any ego. He just loved making music and was just a really beautiful guy."

It was achievement enough that Mixmag would be marking Roberto Concina aka Robert Miles's passing even if he'd been a one-hit wonder, or if he'd simply coasted on the success of 'Children' and the accompanying album 'Dreamland' and become a trance mainstay. But what happened next was far more interesting, and makes his a story worth following. He certainly cashed in on his hit – it was released and re-released, he never seemed bored or embarrassed by his ubiquity, and he settled into a life of luxury. But rather than chase his tail trying to repeat success, he started to explore his musicality, tentatively at first – as on the 1997 single 'Freedom' with Kathy Sledge, which still has those trance-pop chords, but replaces the expected kickdrum with a rolling, jazzy rhythm – then more and more deeply.

In his high-end recording studios he started to gather the cream of generations of talent, and after ditching his UK management and major label, his post-millennium albums became something else entirely. With the likes of Trilok Gurtu, Bill Laswell and Nitin Sawhney in tow, he explored global fusion, jazz, experimental drum'n'bass and psychedelic rock, but all with a Balearic sensibility of pleasure-first that stopped it disappearing up its own backside. He didn't lose touch with the dance world either, just broadened his connections – as you can see from the people he chose to remix his 2001 album 'Organik'. Fearsome noisenik 2^nd Gen, the glitchy electronica “producer's producer” Si Begg, fellow psychedelicists Future Sound Of London, the then relatively unknown Riton: these were not just names plucked from a hat for hip credentials, but kindred spirits, well-chosen to expand the coherent soundworld. His music on his solo albums, this remix collection and his duo album with Gurtu is weird, wonderful – but continued to be successful, landing many major film score placings.

That Balearic sensibility was literal – Miles had been going to Ibiza since 1988, when he was just 19, and though he got diverted by trance commercialism, it was his roots in the original anything-goes-as-long-as-it-works spirit of Alfredo at Amnesia that allowed him to indulge his experimental urges later on. He was on and off the island constantly, and in 2006 bought a mansion and settled down there. In 2012 he founded the OpenLab internet radio station from his home, also in a sense returning to his roots (he had run dance pirate radio stations at home in northern Italy in the early 1990s) but bringing cultural and technological discussion into the mix as well as music. It is obvious that he had a lot more experimentation and hunger for the new in him yet; he was a lesson to us all in how to navigate the tricky line between commercial success and continued creativity.

Let's give the final word to Miles's close friend and collaborator, Nitin Sawhney: "Robert was never complacent, always restless and searching for new sounds and musical challenge. He could've easily sat back and reproduced the sound he had perfected and pioneered on 'Children' but he was so much more than that one ubiquitous track. On 'Organik' he was incredible to watch, with an attention to detail as a programmer I've never seen before or since. He was a true master of sound with his best work yet to come. A tremendously sad loss to music and the world."

Joe Muggs is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to Mixmag. Follow him on Twitter