Kerri Chandler, Atmosphere EP (Shelter, 1993)
https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/1ry3s5wXD98s5jN5bFngEb
“I’ve always been in places where somebody has a gun, somebody’s getting shot, and we’re running,” Kerri Chandler has said of growing up in East Orange, New Jersey. “It’s daily. There’d be a war every night. The minute you heard something, everybody got on the ground. It’s routine. The cops would never come while this was happening, they’d just come to pick up the bodies. That’s where we grew up.” The son of a DJ, Chandler found his escape in music — first as a DJ and engineer, and later as a producer of his own records. What he took from New Jersey wasn’t the darkness, but the gospel influence of his church-going community; the pumping chords and effortless atmospheres of his tracks have led him to become one of the most imitated house producers in recent years. His Atmosphere EP, from 1993, lays down crisp, swinging drums daubed with horns, DX chimes, and graceful, bubbling keyboards — a perfect study in balance, proportion, and playfulness. P.S.
DJ Koze, “Cicely” (Philpot, 2007)
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DJ Koze — a.k.a. Adolf Noise, Monaco Schranze, and Swahimi (The Unenlightened) — is an unreconstructed weirdo with a sly, squirrelly wit. The former International Pony member has covered “We Are the World,” Photoshopped himself alongside an octogenarian Spanish duchess, and given us a catalog that veers from the chopped-and-screwed kitsch of “My Grandmotha” to the deranged, dangerously unvarnished “Dr. Fuck.” But every now and then, he proves himself to be a total softie at heart.Released at the tail end of mnml’s reign, “Cicely” is modest in its materials but expansive in its reach. Three tuned toms serve in place of a bass line; save for 19-and-a-half bars of skittering hi-hats, there are virtually no drums at all. The bulk of the melodic burden is carried by wispy chords and a fine filigree of jazz guitar, and while nothing about the song follows virtually any of dance music’s standard dictates, the whole thing feels as natural as breathing. It’s probably a coincidence that it shares the name of a Cocteau Twins song, but it’s equally as apt a soundtrack for a rainy day, as ephemeral as fog on a windowpane. P.S.
Justin Martin, “The Sad Piano (Charles Webster Remix)” (Buzzin’ Fly, 2003)
There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of tracks that do more or less exactly what this one does, with their scratchy grooves and belly-massaging sub bass and their blocky chords marched up and down the sampling keyboard. So what is it that makes Charles Webster’s remix of Justin Martin’s “Sad Piano” so damn exceptional? Who knows, but it is, and not only because it wrings such dewy-eyed pathos out of a relatively straightforward (albeit affecting) tech-house cut. As a remixer, Webster has always had an exceptionally green thumb — he’s capable of coaxing shoots out of the driest of soil — and here, he grabs a piano riff that Martin used as window dressing and turns it into the main attraction: just chords, chords, chords, as far as the eye can see. Then he goes and tops it off with silvery tendrils and dandelion puffs, a feathery explosion of trills and chirps and plaintive pings; it’s resigned and hopeful all at once, and so cozy you want to crawl inside and live in it forever. P.S.
Andrés, “New for U” (La Vida, 2012)
In 2012, while virtually everyone making deep house, from the diehards to the recent converts, was futzing about in sub-120-BPM terrain (a plenty productive tempo range, but, let’s face it, a furrow that has been well-plowed), Detroit’s Andrés (a.k.a. Dez Andres, Slum Village’s DJ and a member of Theo Parrish’s group the Rotating Assembly) pulled a fast one — literally.”New For U” runs a hair more than 129 BPM, a tempo usually reserved for far tougher strains of techno, but it still stands out as the sweetest, gentlest house track released last year, as well as the most timeless. Based almost entirely on samples (Dexter Wansel’s “Time Is the Teacher,” for one), swollen with the sound of Philly strings and vinyl hiss, and absent any conspicuously modern or digital touches, it sounds like it could have been released at any time in the past 25 years. Andrés earns extra points for his habit of mixing “New for U” with Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” a bold (if quixotic) refusal to let deep house go too gently into that good night. P.S.
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Roy Davis Jr. feat. Peven Everett, “Gabriel” (Large Records, 1996)
Clearly, there’s some confusion as to what constitutes deep house nowadays — particularly in the U.K., where Disclosure’s success with a hi-fi hybrid of 2-step garage and house music’s richer strains has kicked off a whole movement of bass-heavy, tightly swung, vocal-centric dance music. Should you enjoy parsing the minutiae of genres — something we are not above, by any means — there’s plenty to discuss here. But let’s just point out a track that helped muddy the waters long before “U.K. bass” was a thing.Roy Davis Jr.’s “Gabriel” features the Chicago singer Peven Everett singing the praises of the archangel Gabriel while bright, joyous horns signal the arrival of the Good News and a buoyant dub bass line digs its heels into the here-and-now. As smooth as it is, there’s a raw, unrefined quality to the production; it might have been better if the elements didn’t veer quite so far off-key in places, but then again, that occasional dissonance is precisely what gives the song its peculiar frisson. It’s lean but excessive, as though what it’s trying to express could never be contained by conventional tunings or properly quantized beats.The slipperiness of the 1996 groove proved a perfect fit for the nascent U.K. garage scene; the following year, XL reissued the record with new remixes by Basement Jaxx and R.I.P. Productions. And in 2000, a 2-step remix by Large Joints made it onto Locked On’s seminal Sound of the Pirates compilation alongside cuts from Artful Doger, Zed Bias, and Wookie, indirectly paving the way for Disclosure and this year’s garage-inflected house revival. P.S.
