House Music Circles: July

House Music Circles: July

3 August, 2009 | 5.05AM

• Written by: Mazi Namvar
• Filed under: Music News: audio soul project, fresh meat records, house music circles

Lately I’ve returned home musically. Both in the studio and in the DJ booth, the Chicago influences that inspired me years ago have crept their way back into my imagination. This isn’t unique to my experience. The jackin’, loopy, disco influenced sound that permeated Chicago in the 1990s has returned as the en vogue tenor of producers and DJs all over.

A litany of labels like Cadenza, Minus, Cecille, Tsuba, Diynamic, Eklo, Moon Harbour and lately 2020 Vision are welcoming back Chicago’s golden age to modern dancefloors.

One need no further proof of this, than the latest explosion in popularity of DJ Sneak. House DJs again find it compulsory to include at least one of his tracks in their top 10 charts.

Because of his devotion to the sound, Sneak has become the personification of Chicago house.

Cuts like ‘You Can’t Hide From Your Bud’ released on Classic Recordings, or ‘Show Me The Way’ on Henry Street, or his ‘Moon Doggy EP’ on Cajual, have stood the test of time: they are still some of the deadliest tracks you can play in any four four set.

Perhaps more importantly though, Sneak has managed to hang on to the spontaneity and rawness that endeared him to a generation of house heads. 

His remix of Loco Dice’s ‘Pimp Jackson Is Talkin’ Now!!!’ out earlier this year on Desolat, and his remix of Jay Haze’s ‘Can’t Forget’ on Tuning Spork both teem with shuffling drums, rolling syncopated bass, sparse keys and directness that many have imitated but few can execute like the man himself.

Sneak’s full length album ‘House Of House’, released this month, is a 20 track extravaganza separated into two parts.

It is perhaps his most polished work yet but retains the sonic economy and forward attitude that have always been the hallmark of his music. The quintessential elements are there - the filtered disco sample, the cracking snares, the raw as it gets 909 drums, the Latin percussion, the syncopated stabs, the dry bleeps, the flanged hi hats, the rolling bass lines, the chopped vocals and the unending groove - all sounding fresh as if he’d just discovered them for the first time.

Another Chicago mainstay who I can’t seem to shake lately is the maestro himself, Derrick Carter. His early output with Chris Nazuka as Sound Patrol on the now defunct Organico label was some of my earliest introduction to techno-soul.

The ‘Sweetened - No Lemon’ album on Organico was the afterhours soundtrack to my early rave days, mixing psychedelica with disco and acid house into a retro-futuristic hallucinatory stew.

The track ‘Limbo Of Vanished Possibilities’ which Carter put out on Mr. C’s Plink Plonk label is more relevant in today’s post ‘tech-house’ world than it was when it was released 14 years ago.

The fat disco break, huge 909 kick drum, flurry of vintage drum machine hi hats, slinky analog leads, space chords and half sung, half spoken vocals explode on the dancefloor, as much as they invoke an imagined journey through the inner solar system.

Of course there’s no denying the king of boompty’s later work. His recent remixes of Samim’s ‘The Lick’ on Get Physical and Marko Militano’s ‘What You Say’ on .dotbleep both have the playful shuffle, frenzied bleeps, jumpy staccato sub bass bump and hammer-like kick drums that have become Derrick’s calling card.

Personally I’m a devotee of his older stuff and can’t, for example, stop playing the remix that he and Nazuka did for Lolita’s ‘Livin In Shadows’ out via Downtown 161. Anytime I drop that cut it drives the trainspotters batty.

The two Chi-town icons most influential to the house sound of now are Chez Damier and Ron Trent. I feel at least 50% of the tracks I play in any given set these days have some debt owed to the vibe these two guys refined on their Prescription label.

Both Chez and Ron brought a rich background of soul, disco, house, R&B, techno and dub to their creations. Their arrangement techniques and signature stacked organ and piano stabs have been emulated by scores of modern producers including Agnes, Sascha Dive, Jimpster, Jamie Jones and yours truly.

Their early work on KMS and their dub experiments in the ‘Round’ series on Main Street Records set the stage for what Prescription would become. Vocal tracks like ‘New Day’ in the Round Two release on Main Street are blue prints for the reduced but soulful tech hybrids that are the rage today.

A great marker of relevance are the number of new faces who carry the torch of an established style. Chicago house has no shortage. Interestingly many of these ‘new jacks’ aren’t from the Windy City.

Cuban born duo, Einzelkind have been busy reigniting the sound that producers like Paul Johnson, Johnny Fiasco and Roy Davis Jr. popularized.

Their crunchy remix for Chris Wood’s ‘My My’ on Be Chosen with its skippy lo-fi stabs and hypnotic vocal snippets could just as easily have come out on Cajual Records back in ‘94.

Their sample based and wildly filtered rework of Nima Gorji’s ‘Hopp Hopp’ on Murmur has as thick and chunky a vibe as anything done by DJ Pierre or Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley.

A guy who I mentioned earlier who has really dug deep into the Chicago spirit is Swiss producer Ray Valioso aka Agnes. He first came to my attention with his ‘Chicago Take’ remix of Alex Niggemann & Marc Poppcke’s ‘L’Aurora’ on Moon Pool. I remember thinking, “This guy has the Chez and Ron sound nailed!”.

Since then he’s had a prolific year and a half putting out brilliantly soulful remixes and original productions steeped in the same subtlety that defined the 90’s Chicago grooves he is undoubtedly inspired by.

I’d like to think I’ve also been a part of this renaissance. As Wasted Chicago Youth, Justin Long and I have tried to do our part in fusing our city’s heritage to the global currents of modern house music.

Our releases on Justin’s .dotbleep label, my Fresh Meat Records, and Jay Haze’s Tuning Spork take chances and have fun with the traditional timbres of our hometown’s past.

I attribute my musical identity to the Second City, and after years of musical exploration I am slowly finding my way back home.

About Mazi Namvar aka Audio Soul Project

A prolific producer, remixer and DJ, Chicago resident Mazi Namvar’s name has appeared on over 200 records in the 15 years, under a number of pseudonyms including Audio Soul Project.

A DJ for 18 years, Mazi has played at clubs like Fabric in London, Crystal in Istanbul, Q in Zürich, Avalon in Los Angeles, Masai in Varna, Level in Bahrain, Red Light in Paris and Simoon in Tokyo.

He continually works on remixes, and his recent credits include Marc Romboy and Tyree Cooper’s ‘Lost’ on Josh Wink’s Ovum Recordings, Nick and Danny Chatelain’s ‘Sube Conmigo’ on NRK, AlexKid & Chloe’s ‘Afterblaster’ on Brique Rouge, Alexander Maier’s ‘Sahara Rain’ on Mood Music, Cates & dpL’s ‘Through the Weekend’ on OM Records, Chaim’s ‘C Factor’ on Missive Recordings, Sandrino & Adryan’s ‘Solar Wind’ on Fresh Meat and Nosmo v Kris B & Ben Brown’s ‘La Cocina’ which was licensed to Darren Emerson’s ‘Bogotá GU36’ DJ mix; the latest in the Global Underground series.

Currently most of his original music appears on Fresh Meat Records which he co-owns with partner Nathan Drew Larsen. Other recent productions have appeared on Systematic, Dessous Recordings, Circle Music and SAW Recordings. 

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