What's your stance on the current state of house music?

Music
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Feel free to share your opinion, positive or negative or somewhere in between!

Personally, I actually enjoy quite many new house releases. Maybe they can’t match the top 20 of the best 90’s classics, but there’s lots of great, new releases about. Possibly more than 5-10 years ago, but that could just be me digging more again nowadays.

Most of it never ends up on vinyl of course, but I’ve stopped playing vinyl for various reasons anyway.

Despite techno being more popular of the two these days, I find it extremely difficult to find good techno the last 10 or so years. But that’s another topic entirely.

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What are some of the releases that you’re enjoying mate?

I’ve felt pretty uninspired by most of the house music of the past few years. Notable exceptions for me are Tee Mango, esp. his Imperfections Vol.1, (which OK was 7 years ago!) and his EP#3 on Aus Music.
Also Cassy and Portable have put out vocal house records that I continue to find a place for.

I think the space in my head which used to be taken by house music, is now taken by edits?

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I mostly can’t stand edits anymore to be honest. There were some good ones 10 or more years ago, but haven’t heard anything I’d like since that. A good edit is (IMO) something that really adds something to the original, not just quantize a perfectly fine disco track and add some Ableton Live preset drums on top to make it “DJ friendly”.

I’ll compile a small selection of quality house tracks that’ve come out the last few years! Not necessarily stuff others here might enjoy, as I don’t mind when they sound clean and modern, which sometimes annoys people into older forms of house. There’s even some Afterlife releases I enjoy, despite everyone seemingly loathing that sound.

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Here’s a small selection of house tracks that’ve come out the last few years that I enjoy. I could go on for ages though.

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Not to turn this into an edit thread, for the most part I agree with you (also guilty of making a few ropy edits over the years😎) but there are a few great edit labels still kicking about. One of my faves is this one:

Mostly jazz/funk/Brazilian ish that’s been sampled by 90’s hip hop. Ace sound quality. Also press immaculate 7’s.

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As for house……

https://systematicrecordingsofficial.bandcamp.com/album/terrence-parker-loves-got-me-high-systematic-presents-lost-treasures-vol-1-2

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I’ve been buying quite a lot of house recently there some amazing stuff on Upstairs Asylum out of Detroit. They’ve just released some new e.p’s, the one with Boo Williams- Ticking Clock on it is amazing. The Reggie Dokes tracks are great too.

Whether it’s strictly house or not I’m not sure but this goes down a storm every time I play it out

Some others I’ve loved recently-

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It’s an old genre now, so it’s obviously never going to recapture the excitement of the early years, but I think there have been some fantastic releases over the past few years. Really love what Arno Mathieu is doing and Clive From Accounts is maybe my favourite new producers, this in particular is just so effortlessly groovy and sounds amazing played live.

More recently, he’s just done a remix of Underground System which might not be out yet, but is fab.

I think my favourite house tune from 2022 was this one, quite spacy, reminds me a bit of some of François K’s early house releases on Wave.

This one came out during the pandemic and I keep shouting about it, cos it got completely ignored (it was a compilation only track), but a beautiful vocal by Laville and my favourite Austin Ato production.

This is absolutely ace, but I only realised quite recently just how good it is (sat in a crate for months without playing it). Super psychedelic.

Been hammering this for the last couple of years. Like the liveness of the drums (it’s a drummer playing, presumably over a synthetic kick maybe?)

This has a bit of a Wild Pitch feel to it, came out last year on Piers Harrison’s Mysticisms, maybe my fave release on the label. It’s Tornado Wallace on the mix under a different name.

Another recent goodie. Hamza is a Delhi based DJ. I played with him at a festival in Pune about a month ago. The remix is by a gang of guys who are based just south of Hamburg and this is the best thing they’ve ever done. It’s like a really soulful late 90s tech-house track.

Charles Webster is still making brilliant houser records. He’s been doing it for over 30 years, is there anyone else with that consistency anywhere in the world? I can’t think of anyone. Played this on NTS two months ago and it sent the chatroom right off.

Christ, that’s quite a lot. Some bangers on this thread, though! (Not necessarily mine, I hasten to add.)

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That Charles Webster one is really fantastic. Agree, Webster consistency is quite something.

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I think there’s been some nice stuff flying around the past few years, and there seems to be fewer annoying trends/crazes that suddenly take hold (or maybe I just don’t notice them as much) - though cant say I adore the tough fast techno thing which has held sway for a bit. Slow techno and strange house/disco much more fun!

I thought that Herbert album Musca a year or two ago was ace - this is the best of the remixes I came across

Don’t know a whole lot about this - but thought it was nice in a slightly kind of weirded out Detroit house way

Love Niagara’s stuff - a group on Principe - this is them at their most four four ish

Nice sprightly bit of techy house on Smalville

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I love that Deep Dean mix of Leinad, it always goes down really well.

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That Clive From Accounts remix is absolutely incredible!

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Innit, though! He’s a talented kid :heart_eyes: :nerd_face:

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Yeah, his productions are immense.Still play Moon Buggy loads.

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Yeah Moon Buggy bangs, too. The one that really got me into his stuff was The Rain, which I think might have come out on a compilation. Can’t remember offhand.

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It’s an old genre, but then again there are many genres where the golden age happened a long time after the birth of the genre, or it later mutated into new sub-genres that were just as energetic and interesting as the first wave. Jazz comes to mind, the best years (IMO) happened decades after it’s invention. Same goes for rock and it’s later mutations, punk and heavy music. And heavy of course later mutated into interesting sub genres such as black metal, a long time after Black Sabbath’s first records.

And sometimes a genre can have multiple golden ages. Like hip hop. Some think it was the very early years, before it even got recorded and was more of a DJ and live thing. Some say it’s the 80’s. Some say it’s the 90’s. And I personally feel that an argument could be made for even the later stuff, as I truly adore the clean, minimal production style of what The Neptunes and such did around the year 2000. It was a brilliant new way to make hip hop, with a fresh and different sound the early 90’s stuff had.

Sometimes of course a genre has such a specific and limited palette that it’s rinsed to death in a few years. Dubstep comes to mind. But house music has shown some serious endurance. The clubs and festivals are still full of young people enjoying it. I don’t really see it going away in the near future either, even if older people snub at it’s modern mutations.

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I do think house music has seen a bit of a resurgence over the last couple of years. Vocals seem to be making a come back and there’s been some great tunes our recently and a lot are as good as the ones in the 90s / early 00s.

A couple of my favs vocal house cuts of recent times are

Very classy vocal

Another classy vocal

Unashamed banger

David Morales has been on a bit of a roll over the last 2 years

Tribal / afro house goodness

And not sure what people make of this - I wasn’t so sure about the MJ connection to start with but it is an unashamed peak time monster

And ok this isn’t a vocal number but its up their with Joe Claussell’s best

Long live house !

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I really like the stuff cintie plays/releases:

On another end of the house spectrum but also great:

Good times to discover music…

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Enjoyed that recent Kassem Mosse stuff - really cool

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As a committed househead since the late 80s / early 90s, I’m of the opinion that the best modern House Music is as great as its ever been. Done well, it really is timeless emotionally-moving music. The problem is, with less and less people having any sort of musical education and more and more people being literal posers, there is just so much more absolute shit to wade though.

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