House Music Circles

House Music Circles

2 November, 2009 | 7.51AM

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

Deep house has gone through exciting expansions over the last several months. I usually oscillate between different styles when shopping for new dance music or picking tracks to play in a set.

Lately though, I’ve gravitated to producers and tracks that, on Beatport anyway, seem to consistently fall under the ‘deep house’ category. And it’s not just me.

At gigs I’ve had several people come up and ask for the sub genre by name, “Are you going to get deep tonight?”.

Now I could get lost in reasons why this shift is taking place but instead of speculating on grandiose external forces I prefer to focus on what I think is the main reason this vibe is relevant.

There is a burgeoning group of dynamic producers injecting the scene with a wide breadth of creativity that it has seldom known before.

Top on my list right now (or close to it) is Pezzner. Dave Pezzner, formerly of Jacob London, started releasing solo material in late 2008.

With two initial EPs on Freerange and the multi-faceted ‘Jouets Fantastiques’ EP on OM, he immediately created a signature sound and a benchmark for the insane amount of quality that has followed.

‘Chapter Two’ off his OM debut has all the elements that have since become his hallmarks: crisp funk influenced and madly compressed drums, side chained pads that swell and duck out rhythmically, playful keys spread across the groove and a devious sense for arrangement full of surprising starts and stops.

His grooves are reduced in parts and morph via studio magic into sonically wild climaxes.

Pezzner’s productions are deep house to be sure but hidden under his subtle grooves are layers of wizardry that could tear even the biggest of rooms right up!

It’s this kind of versatility that has made Dave one of the most in demand remixers of the moment.

One of his latest, a reinvention for James Braun’s ‘Lessons’ on Mothership is the kind of builder that can be misleading on a first listen.

A DJ might think the slinky muted stabs and tight rhythm track would only work at an afterhours. But the sound design and pyrotechnics are such that each of the freaky breakdowns induce high octane mayhem if played at the right time in the right venue.

Another talent who has hit a serious stride lately is Barcelona-based Soul Minority. His ‘Come Back For More’ tune from the ‘I Remember House EP’ was an understated anthem in mid 2009.

His subsequent ‘Plough Hand EP’ on Detroit’s Kolour Recordings had an even bigger impact. At one point all four tracks from the EP were in Beatport’s Deep House top 100 chart.

His back-to-roots musical approach has found wide appeal because of its inviting simplicity and straight forward honesty.

He utilizes mainstay house elements like stacked discoesque claps, warm electric pianos, memorable vocal snippets, emotional filtered strings and slap baselines that make an effort at sounding live.

Much of his music has a familiar quality. Often the Soul Minority approach is to use vocal hooks from classic house tracks like his ‘A Soul Thing’ on Pack Up And Dance which uses the main vox from Eddie Amador’s mega hit ‘House Music’.

The sweetly low slung ‘100% Missing You’ jacks the same vocal samples as Moodymann’s (aka Kenny Dixon Jr.) timeless ‘Shades Of Jae’.

Some purists, including Dixon himself, might find this approach questionable but I personally love Soul Minority’s mixture of new musical elements with familiar sonic memories. The one place that doesn’t lie is the dance floor and every time I’ve played a Soul Minority jam on a soundsystem the result has been magic.

Stuttgart native Danilo Plesslow has been hard at work bringing deep, soulful and intensely emotional house music to audiences worldwide under his Motor City Drum Ensemble guise.

Combining an ever growing collection of jazz, funk, hip hop and soul records with his obsession for vintage drum machines, Plesslow has written some of the most unforgettable tracks of the last 18 months.

MCDE releases on his Faces imprint have already produced unforgettable results.

‘Raw Cuts 3’ is perhaps the most catchy outing, tinged heavily with popular soul vocal samples, a whopping and loose drum track, simple electric piano chord progressions and underpinned by a bumpin bass line that, at least to my ears, sounds like a Yamaha DX-7.

The MCDE release for legendary label 2020 Vision is special indeed. He again employs a tasteful amount of sample wizardry but what takes front stage on this release is his brilliant drum programming.

Both ‘Keep Up’ and ‘Frontin’ are the kind of straight-up, compression heavy beat downs that I imagine could have been made by Detroit luminaries like Kelli Hand or Theo Parrish.

As tends to happen when the heat turns up on a sound, a whole host of talented acts are churning out the vogue sounds of now.

My current favorites are the relatively unknown Huxley & Ehtyl. They’ve only had two releases, the ‘Sassanids EP’ on Cecille Numbers and ‘Colours 03’ on Tsuba, but both projects contain gems that deliver a delicate fusion of traditional New York deep house techniques with modern production value.

My two favorite Ehtyl & Huxley tracks are ‘Ten.1’ and ‘Mother Tongue’ which I feel are reminiscent of the most personal work by classic house acts like Mood II Swing or Masters At Work.

New-man-on-the-scene Ladzinksi is another artist to keep a close eye on.

His upcoming debut release on Boe Recordings is more Chicago-centric, littered with skippy 16th triplet drum machine cadences and repetitive melodic synth chords.

His patient arrangements steer away from heavy reliance on samples instead concentrating on original pads, piano, organ and strings that help create the kind of harmonies that never get tired.

New London transplant Shenoda has also woven a unique tapestry of tracks in the space of a few short months.

With releases on labels like Hypercolour, Hairy Claw, and Fresh Meat, Shenoda has begun to put together the pieces of what promises to be a long fruitful career.

It seems most of his attention goes to the impressionistic nature of a composition rather than its mundane parts.

Whether he uses a synthetic approach like ‘Crash’ or a completely earthy take like ‘Hussle’, the common thread in his production is the deliberate sense of personality that emanates from each of his tunes.

None of Shenoda’s writing choices seem utilitarian, each musical element is there to express a specific thought or feeling.

I suppose that might be why deep house is enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

Dancers want to feel and connect with what they hear coming through the speakers.

Maybe nothing gives as intimate a connection between the DJ and the dancer as the introspective work of the artists mentioned above, and their contemporaries.

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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• Check out Audio Soul Project on Beatport