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By Henry Every · Illustrated by Emma Shore · September 28, 2022
“Tech house” may be one of dance music’s most controversial labels. On the dance floor cool hierarchy, tech house remains at the bottom. Just as everything from New Age to Gabber has had revivals and comebacks, tech house has been the black sheep of Cleveland’s hysterdom. According to Toronto-based producer and DJ CL, “The genre has been so abused over the past decade that it’s suffered from a lack of understanding of what it even is.
CL is in place. Although a publication as a fact Mixed taste He tried to return the genre as “emotion” or Resident Advisor It doesn’t seem to shake its image as an enduring punchline, providing an accurate history of the genre. As CL continues, “[Tech house] It’s what we call ‘business techno’.” A pejorative term used to describe the obnoxious background music emanating from thousands of Instagram and TikTok festival videos has become synonymous with tech house. As Berlin-based producer Huerta explained in an email, the genre is now short of “big white noise drops and painful beats that seem to go on forever with no changes.”
But this modern version of the tech house is far from its roots. The genre took shape in the US and UK in the mid-90s to early 00s. “It was a broad sound,” says London producer Call Super, referring to UK producers such as Jeff Mills and Claude Young, pioneers of Detroit dance music. Provocative, ever-filling, jazz and soul twists and turns inside. Sounds like an evolution of the twisted Detroit sound in the UK. Tech house was faster than most house records at the time, centered around north of 130 BPM, and focused on springy, snappy drums and basslines as rich as a basketball. It’s hard to overstate the importance of early promoters like Green Velvet in the States and England’s Terry Francis and names like Wiggle and Sistha Ridings in solidifying the sound: not to mention clubs like Textiles who became the centerpiece.
However, as time went on things got a bit stale. “[Over] The years, they were exhausted, and the records that were released were all similar and formulaic to each other,” says Casablanca producer Kosh. “It became too big and too popular, and all the creative ideas were standardized and put into boxes. It was like a basic predictable formula that was repeated across the board without any surprises. And so for the last decade or so, tech house has been the focal point of dance music comics.
But this was until recently. A new crop of producers and dedicated diggers are starting to revive the term, a purgatory of tank top/bucket hat festivals and a resurgence with the original wiggly, infectious energy that always seeps from beneath. It has become a global phenomenon. I ask Ciel if she has any favorite producers in the genre, and she points out that the best modern tech house comes from female producers. And it’s true: the tech house has become very diverse in recent years.
But don’t call it a comeback. “People are still constantly making and playing what we call tech house over the years,” says London producer Sam Bangura. “[But] Again, I think this idea of a ‘revival’ will come down even more in the recent past because people have been afraid to name it that way because of the image that the sound was attached to. Maybe people are now re-opening their minds to the realization that genre names aren’t everything and that’s why it’s having a bit of a resurgence.
Revival or not, we examine some of the best tech houses released in the past few years.
Cloudsteppers
The limit
Ciel says she’s never “let go of a full tech house.” Her back catalog, however, is full of funky tracks, with basslines like flabbergasts and drumbeats that sound horizontal. “Koala Bounce” and “Deep FM” get honorable mentions for the funniest, but it’s “Happiness Trigger” that takes the cake, a collaboration with Toronto producer Dan Only as Cloudsteppers. It’s an after-party anthem – a lead flute-like melody gives way to gently-acquiring chords and bass beats, making it the perfect energy pick-me-up for dancers who believe they should have gone home a few hours earlier.
liquid earth
Transcendence
For LA producer Liquid Earth, tech house isn’t so much a genre, but an approach to dance music in general. “It’s in between. Nothing more, nothing less. The glue of every set,” he says. This means he tries not to indulge in excessive nostalgia: “My music is situational, milieu. I am the sum total of all the things I have and will not experience. Because of this truth, my approach to creating music and experiencing it is always moving forward. I don’t know any other way.” You can hear this in his decision on the technology house. Part of the reason the genre has such a bad reputation is because it was co-opted by the Ibiza Bros., but Liquid Earth’s take is a little more camp, which makes the self-important monk-like hairstyles (sorry Michael Beebe) uncomfortable. Every release from Liquid Earth is worth checking out, but this release for Leeds partystarters Butter Side Up is one I keep coming back to. All four tracks have aggressive basslines and chinzy chord progressions—it’s like reimagining the soundtrack. Miami Vice Like a tech house (and everything is placed in space).
Call Super
PEACH007
In some ways, Call Super is the epitome of a modern tech house artist. They grew up sneaking into clubs the moment the genre was being formed. The sound they gravitated towards gave it “something inherently Detroit/Chicago and a London feel to it in its packaging and inspiration.” But their own productions are more exotic than the ones they take inspiration from; Melodies are jumbled and strange, and rhythms slide instead of swing. There’s something undeniably true to the genre’s history in their music, though. As they say, “Maybe that label stuck because I’m known as someone who plays this genre, and maybe because of a long-standing joke with Hard Wax where they describe every record I release as tech house.” Joke or don’t joke PEACH007 It’s a serious business. “We Only Have Speed” is haunting and dark, with curious melodies and angles. “All We’ve Got Is Glue” is just as heavy, but as the melody kicks in midway through the track, it’s edging closer to sunrise bliss.
Coke
Galaxy Girl
London Pitch has earned its reputation as one of the best selectors out there in part because it’s not afraid to go for the big moments in DJ sets – most people can’t get away with dropping a RuPaul’s track on top. Their Boiler Room debut (with Lamb spinning on the turntables no less). But her first EP Galaxy Girl It was a more restrained affair with punches and bass-packing drums with a square aim in the chest. Her take on the genre includes some vintage peach goofiness, whether it’s the acid crunch on “Mimosa” or the bassline begging for a comeback on “Buttercup.”
Various artists
Three years of North South records
Talk to anyone familiar with tech house history and they’ll mention the famous Wiggle Party. Run by three London DJs and producers – Terry Francis, Eddie Richards and Nathan Coles – the parties are both synonymous with the old UK tech house style and the fabric of the world’s most celebrated clubs. North South, the name and the party run by the same three unlikely men—Sam Bangura, Harry McKenna and Dale Mussington—seems to be the inheritors of this tradition. On this three-year anniversary album, you can hear the unique style of tech house they’ve created. The tracks here range from the cinematic smoothness of Tim Schlockerman to the top-down funk of Voigtman—but each producer shares aesthetic principles: the bass has an omp and the melodies are lean but punctuated by scratches. to wander
CART
The inner world
Casablanca producer Kosh wears his emotions on his sleeve for the music he makes. From the very beginning of “In the World,” eerie screams are pounding on snowy drums. Like some of the original UK producers who started the genre, Kosh sees Detroit inspiration in his move towards techno, particularly second wave techno and electronic. It’s refreshingly exposed and introspective in a genre known for its somewhat formulaic nature. He describes his favorite older releases as “powerful, brutal, fast-paced, dark and melodic all at the same time,” and he lives up to that formula on the shapeshifter “Infinite Loop.” Don’t worry, it’s not all tears on the dance floor. Tracks like “No Gimmick” can put him out there with the best.
Hureta
Ayo Skidlo
Although Huerta now lives in Berlin, he’s part of a group of California producers who keep the fire going for the West Coast — home to early producers like Halo and Hip-E. Huerta started off with deep, soulful house tunes before things loosened up a bit with the full richness of his missed ’90s records. “It was a big turning point when they opened their spirit shop and started hosting parties at Hoppettose and Club der Visionreer,” he said. “They and many of our UK friends have had a big influence on my taste over the years.” Debut for Amsterdam purveyors of groove SlapFunk was the culmination of the sound. The sound design on the record is wide and spacious—full of alien bleed and shrill noises that reverberate across the stereo field—but Huerta still brings depth. Take a closer look at Brett’s “Buzz Off Like,” a living room filled with red velvet furniture and heavy smoke.
Saoirse
Trust
Londoner Saoirse has built a reputation as one of the world’s best DJs thanks to her encyclopedic knowledge of club culture (acquired from a young woman at after-parties with her mother). But she started testing the product last year and the results were mind-blowing as expected. Confidence is the perfect blend of cerebral and cathartic. The darting arpeggios on “(.)(.)” and the duet wash of “La Burbuja” make the party even more heady, as each punter disappears into his own hole. If you want something a little bigger, try “Drop the Bass” for size. The vocals and electro-style drum programming (plus the occasional swirling background swirl) make for an airy moment, but Saoirse makes sure to stay weird – the eerie little chords that slide through the back half of the song have a welcome feel. Tension in another fun track.
Various artists
Limo volume sound. 1
For the best modern technology home, it is only appropriate to finish with a primer; Limo volume sound. 1, released by Berlin producer Gene on Earth’s Limousine Dream label. Gene has been at the forefront of pushing this current revival, and as he explained in an email, this compilation is meant to showcase what he considers the best of the best: “I’m not really into new music and stuff. They could be people, so the LP was basically an exercise in digging from today’s scene. […] I wanted to present my own version of how I interpret good music in the current climate. What’s amazing about the album is that each track carries each producer’s unique personality – from hazy, sugarfree swings to sly video game flicks to Rosa Terenzi’s badass travel jitters – but it works well. As an album. Here you can just mix between the two discs and have the dance floor in the palm of your hand.
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