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Bluffers Guide to House Music


Tech House

Originating around ‘96/’97 from the likes of Terry Francis and the Wiggle massive, tech house took the repetitive structure of techno, deep groovy basslines, rolling percussion and dubbed-out vocals and synths to create a hypnotic style that generally keep things simple and effective. Tech house isn’t about over-complicating things – it’s about straight-up dancefloor music for the feet with a definite wiggle in its hips.

Typical track: William Scott – Heavyweight
Typical DJ: Nathan Coles


Tribal House

Very much about the percussive side of things, tribal house focuses on big chunky drums and strangely enough – tribal rhythms. Lots of bongos, tablas, kettle drums, tom-toms and other big drum sounds are used to create chugging riddims that hark back to a time when ancient tribes would dance around fires to the primitive sounds of drums themselves. It’s very much about imitating the rhythm of the heart. Melody isn’t the key here – it’s the urgent feel that is created by the percussion. Check out the tasty tribal/electro that’s being created by the likes of Mark Knight, Rene Amesz and D. Ramirez at the mo.

Typical track: Peace Divison – Feel My Drums
Typical DJ: Danny Tenaglia


Electro House

Like straight up electro but with more of flowing beat to it. Big dirty synths, retro ‘80s sound effects and instrumentation and usually a kick-snare combo at the centre of the beat. Good electro house will have a naughty, playful, slightly dirty feel to it.

Typical track: The Egg – Walking Away (Tocadisco’s Acid Walk Remix)
Typical DJ: Most amateur/bar DJs


Acid House

One of the earliest variants on theme of house, acid house was spewed out of the Roland 303 ....

Such tracks were notable for being amongst the earliest non-vocal tracks that were released in house music – showing that the genre was fast evolving away from its disco roots.

The “acid” noise, a bubbly, gurgling bit of filth that most people will know from the melody on Josh Wink’s ‘Higher State of Consciousness’ is often prevalent and is what gave the genre its name initially, but not an essential part of the music. Old skool sounding Roland 808 drum machine noises give the classic acid house percussion – raw handclaps and other such basic sounds from the dawn of the electronic drum machine.

Typical track: Tyree ‘Acid Over'
Typical DJ: DJ Pierre


Funky House
A simple one. Elasticated, slinky basslines derived from the irresistible tones of ‘70s/’80s funk, slapped over formulaic kick+hi-hat house beats form the backbone, with girly vocals, pianos and softly-spoken synths all welcome additions. It’s feel good music – fun, and positive with a flirtatious sexual energy to it. i.e. the gyal dem love it.

Typical track: Axwell – ‘Til The Morning Comes
Typical DJ: Stonebridge


Jackin’ House

The “jack” in Jackin’ House originates from a certain dance move that was popular around the height of the acid house craze – to which an ode was written in the form of the legendary track “Jack Your Body” by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley way back in 1985. This Chicago-born music is full of deep, funky undertones and skippy percussion, and beats that have a certain swing to them. While something like electro house has more punctuated beats and rhythms, jackin’ house opts for more fluid, rolling percussive elements which simply cause the body to twitch and twist in what is best described as a jackin’ motion! Jack ya body!

Typical track: Derrick Carter – Squaredancing In A Roundhouse
Typical DJ: DJ Sneak


Latin House

Here we have a mish-mash of funky and deep house with elements of samba, merengue and other musics of Latin American origin to make for a spicy, exotic take on the house music formula. Expect to hear maracas, bongos, trumpets, Hispanic vocals and a whole heap of fiery fiesta vibes!
Typical track: Negro Can – Cada Vez (Grant Nelson Remix)
Typical DJ: Lil Louie Vega


Bassline House

More a bastard child of speed garage (but hey, it’s got ‘house’ in the title), bassline house takes a similarly elevated tempo (compared to ‘regular’ house), skippy beats, huge droning basslines that sound a bit like DnB basslines pitched down (or reggae basslines pitched up, and all too often naff vocals. Pretty much a Midlands thing, this one is strictly for the underground. Now get rid of those vocals and give us some dubs! It is essentially speed garage – but that term is sooooo 1997.....

Typical Track: Craig Graham - Relick
Typical DJ: DJ Stu E


Minimal House

M*n*m*l was invented when techno legend Robert Hood heard his clock ticking and some water dripping from a tap at the same time and thought “now what would that sound like with a kick drum under it?” OK that’s not actually true, but it that’s unfortunately what an awful lot of minimal house resembles. Some of it rocks though. The idea is to avoid creating too dense a sound. Minimal doesn’t necessarily entail the use of only a few sounds – many tracks in the genre consist of a complex arrangement of many elements – but the overall sound that is created is stripped down and generally avoids the use of vocals or anything in the way of big melody. It’s about subtle rhythms and deep basslines and a tripped-out hypnotic feel. Generally a very electronic style of dance music, with little organic content in it whatsoever. However, some superb artists such like Âmé – who have been perhaps unjustly given the dreaded minimal tag – manage to evoke deep, soulful feelings from their uncluttered arrangements.

The good stuff rocks but my word is there a lot of dull, lifeless minimal house. Basically – it’s house – but as the name suggests, less so.

Typical track: Theo Parish – Falling Up (Carl Craig Remix)
Typical DJ: Loco Dice


Progressive House

So called as when it originated in the early ‘90s, this deeper, atmospheric strain of house music was seen to be progressing the music from its basic acid heritage. The likes of Sasha, John Digweed and Way Out West were all pioneers of the sound – which can best be described as a style of house that was intended to transcend the often throwaway functionality of much electronic dance music, and to replace it with something for the mind as well as the body. Much of it has an epic, emotive feel to it. The sound of this genre these days has evolved to become slightly more melodic and less deep than previously.

Typical Track: Breeder – The Phoenix
Typical DJ: Sasha


Hip-House

Essentially an acid house + hip-hop vocal combo which works better than most people probably would have predicted. Good for breakdancing and bodypopping and for providing a vocal style house that’s something a bit different to the regular stuff.

Typical Track: Jungle Brothers – I’ll House You
Typical DJ: Kenny Hawkes has been known to drop a bit...


Gospel House

Praise the lowwwwd! In Jesus name! Hallelujah! And so on. Gospel House is all about praising the Lord Almighty, God, JC and all that jazz – and doing so with the help of funky, soulful housey beats. Much of this stuff often falls under the US Garage banner and is more about organic, live instrumentation – jazzy brass, jolly violins and bumping b-lines – than electronic sounds. It all gets rather repetitive lyrically – with little deviation from the main subject theme – “don’t let the man get you down”, “keep the faith”, “I shall be released”, “can I get a witness?”, “he walks among us”, “he is by my side”....yeah yeah we get it, God’s wicked and that!

There’s also certain exponents of Christian House – such as former Ten City star Byron Burke (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=53599911) . Hmmmm......

Typical Track: Copyright – He Is
Typical DJ: Tony Humphries


Fidget House

Glitchy, Switchy, bumpy groovy madness! Fidget House is the name that certain people have bestowed on the choppy, deeply funky brand of tech-house that the likes of Switch (aka Solid Groove aka Dave Taylor) and Jesse Rose have been cooking up over the last few years. It’s very refreshing sounding, groove-based music that is full of little vocal snippets, quirky melodies and bizarre little samples which have been carefully arranged to create an irresistibly funky rhythm. It’s basically tech-house with a spangled twist. We challenge you to keep still to this stuff!

Typical Track: Switch - Just Bounce 2 This
Typical DJ: Switch – who else?


Scouse House

Pretty far removed from any traditional (or tasteful) notions of house music, Scouse House takes all the most painful elements of hardcore (cringeworthy, naff vocals, ear-gratingly cheesy trancey synth riffs) and slows them down to a painfully patient BPM of around 140BPM. It’s like being at the naffest, most horrible fairground you’ve ever been to filled to the brim with horrible little chavs singing horrible commercial euro trance. Evil, evil music.

Typical Track: Akira – A Piece Of Heaven
Typical DJ: Alex K


Green House

Ha! Fooled you there! There’s no such thing as Green House. Yet....


'Bluffers Guide to House Music' Article by BenGomori -
text taken from Dontstayin.com:
http://www.dontstayin.com/uk/london/turnmills/2006/nov/18/article-3374