Lately I’m noticing that all house music (well, most house music, shall we say) is starting to sound ever-too-similar. Untz untz untz. ch-ch-ch. Insert melodic pad here. Insert baseline harmony. Loop, Add buildups, breakdowns, effects, and repeat. B-o-r-i-n-g! That’s why for the past couple of years I have been leaning more towards minimal and micro-house rather than other styles of the house music spectrum, as these genres are more rapidly evolving, whereas the state of traditional tech-house, deep house, and Chicago house is, well, somewhat stale by comparison.
But there is a host of new players on the scene that are making a sort of retro house sound that I dig a LOT. It sounds like it could come from the 80′s, almost. Taking sounds from old-school Chicago house and mashing them together with modern rhythmic structures is the name of the game for these new-school producers–who, as it turns out, are often hip-hop producers turned househeads, or techno lovers taking their first dabbles into serious structures of ‘zee funk’.
Who are they? Well, Jimmy Edgar is one for sure. Another is FCL. Soulphiction. Moodyman. And some lesser-known Germans with names that are hard to pronounce, such as Klangmodule. Their music gets mistakenly classified as minimal, deep house, and tech-house. But what it should really be called is : awesome house. I think I have a new addiction. Wanna check it out? Here, take a listen!
