The trouble with deep house...

Nothing highlights the huge gulf in quality between modern house productions than two records that arrived in the post this week. The first, a collection of remixes of Sascha Dive's material on Deep Vibes, show just how creatively bankrupt music sold under the broad deep house tag can be. Samuel Davis’ take on ‘Jed Clayton’ is a decent jacking arrangement and DJ Qu’s offbeat, piano key-led take on ‘Black Panther’ is unusual, but  the other remixes, by Federico Molinari and Christian Burkhardt, are dull,
one-dimensional plodding tribal grooves that lack any kind of flair, imagination or identity. How anyone can appreciate these DJ tools is beyond me. Neville Watson's 'Bleeding Through' on Clone's Jack for Daze series represents the other end of the spectrum. Watson, who impressed with a recent release with Kink on one of Rush Hour's sublabels at the start of the year, is hardly re-inventing the wheel, but the sounds and execution are of a very high standard. Warm, resonating basslines, evocative synths, rumbling rhythms and out there vocal samples that punctuate the title track and the charmingly titled 'Up Yours' call to mind the classic Chicago deepness of Heard and Trent. The tougher remix from label boss Serge and Gerd on the flip is reminiscent of a more contemporary spin on Chicago house-  think JTC but without the scuzziness -  but surely the fact that a record which reproduces a classic style and in so doing sounds vastly superior to productions touted as one of the latest 'big things' in electronic music says a lot about the shortcomings of the contemporary scene?

Comments

[clom]

not to mind reggie dokes amazing new 12" on their Lofty sublabel.

CURSE YOU CLONE!

[Marc]

Yeah, that new Reggie Dokes is doing it for me too.

Anyway, I'm not sure I understand this criticism. Was there not subpar mnml, etc? When things are 'of the moment, they get watered down. And even when they aren't the big thing there's a lot of crap out there. The point is to find the quality in whatever the sub-genre. It's easy to find crap.

[bernardo]

Yeah the mnml hype was annoying but I find the constant overuse of the term 'deep' to be far more obnoxious. Particularly when its applied to this constant stream of watered down contemporary house music that sounds like it should be background music at an Ikea showroom.

[Marc]

Agreed. But the current trend favoring house has also brought attention to some very talented producers (just as the mnml hype before it did). My only point is I'd rather spend time talking about the quality out there instead of the bland dance music that's all too prevalent.

[tom/pipecock]

listening through many many many "deep house" new releases online yesterday, it struck me how few of them sound different from each other or different from "minimal techno" that came before it. most of this shit has nothing to do with house, deepness, or anything of the sort. it's slightly less glitched out mnml dropped 10 BPM.