Super tight deep house, verging on what I imagine “lounge music” to be. I’d always thought of 2006 as a relatively fallow period for this sort of thing - the sort of drive time house that is neither un-grown nor un-sexy but escapes the stigma of “grown and sexy” - although that may just be the effect of the ongoing re-education campaign centering “blog house” as the era’s musical lodestone.

Sorry for the wait. It wasn’t completely unintentional, but I had some time off amidst a job switch and didn’t get to the keyboard much. Rest assured that my output will come back up to par now that I’m once again selling eight computer-hours a day to my faceless benefactor.

Scuba is a DJ, producer, label head, and podcaster from London, UK. In addition to operating Hotflush Recordings, he’s best known for his SUB:STANCE residency at Berghain, as well as his 2010 album Triangulation and 2011 DJ-Kicks mix. This interview took place shortly before his SUB:STANCE set performed at Denver’s Black Box this past week.

I don’t know anything about DJ Finesse, Lucky Smurf, or the short-lived Murderland Records outfit, but these are the two fastest Baltimore club tracks I’ve ever heard. Abandoning “Think (About It)” and “Sing Sing” to push into the mid-140s BPM, the A side lifts drums and an exhortation from “Long Red,” while the flip pairs two Michael Jackson samples and some kind of DJ Paul-esque evil laugh to utterly deranged effect.

The one-and-only Dance Mania solo 12” from DJ Tone, better recognized as Santonio (as in “Reese and ”). “Breathe Again” presents a way harder, snare roll-ier take on the same R. Kelly flip made famous as Dee Jay Nehpets “Na Na Na” the following year.

Jessy Lanza is a producer, performer, and songwriter from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She’s best known for her albums on Hyperdub Records - Pull My Hair Back (2013), Oh No (2016), and All The Time (2020). At the time of this interview (November 2021), she was preparing to release her entry in the !K7 Records DJ-Kicks mix series.

An all-time entry in the crowded “Moments in Love" sample canon, turned unduly difficult to find after showing up in a couple Ben UFO sets. Made by DJ Technics under a one-time “Technosis" alias for reasons unknown to me. The A1 is the big draw for most people, but I get plenty of mileage out of both “Bonus Beat #1" and the never-ending “Monkey Dance" loop.

Late-period Dance Mania, where some of the tropes that would be central to early 2000s ghettotech start to surface before the label's demise shifts the locus of the sound up I-94 to Detroit. “T-Shirt" gashes Adina Howard “T Shirt & Panties," and “How We Look" breaks out the classic male/female call and response vocal.

It’s been a bit - last time I was doing any writing this post could’ve been titled “Welcome to the Party" or maybe “Back From the Dead 4." Historically, I’ve used this site as a mostly-static archive of my work; almost everything here was initially published via an indulgent little email newsletter that I ran for about a year from 2017 to 2018, with some interviews and other loosies from before and during that period accumulating at Tiny Mix Tapes and Passion of the Weiss. My focus since then has been on extended interview series highlighting specific scenes and cities - I went to Houston in late 2018; in 2019 I spoke on the phone with a bunch of figures from different points along Chicago’s dance music timeline and went to New Orleans that winter.

It was the first week of March, 2012, and I was on spring break. The Boys had assembled, as if having no other choice, to trek up to Richmond for a Neon Indian show. The opener, a duo called Purity Ring, left a much stronger impression.