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Cheat Sheet: The New Deep House

by Philip Sherburne

Deep house never really goes out of fashion; somewhere, there'll always be someone playing jazzy chords over a disco beat. For whatever reason, though, the style is particularly hot right now, with artists from Los Angeles to the Ukraine sinking their teeth into the slower tempos and moody melodies of dance music at its most romantic.

In part, it's a reaction to minimal techno's long, anemic reign of clicks and bleeps; it's also a logical extension of pop culture's cyclical appetites. Birthed in the 1990s, deep house fits the emerging decade's desire for the near-vintage, the just-past-its-prime-becoming-prime-again. But the return of deep house means more than that. It's also a reminder of disco's role as the genesis of all contemporary dance music; it unlocks the door for R&B to sneak inside. And, unlike what's happening in commercial dance music right now, the new deep house requires you to meet it halfway. While hardly bereft of riffs or hooks, it veils more than it yields.

If This Is House I Want My Money Back Zwei

Various Artists

Munich's Permanent Vacation label may not seem to take life too seriously, between the name and the self-deprecating compilation title. And sure, they can be slackers, lingering in the lower BPMs and spacing out on synthesizer curlicues. But John Talabot, Mano Le Tough and their labelmates prove to be avid students of classic house, giving their low-slung funk and robo-disco a rigor lacking in most new jacks. They tick all the right boxes -- luminous pianos, scuffed disco breaks, clattery 808s -- but they also know when to set aside the books and cut loose. Now that's edutainment.

Get Lost 4 Mixed By Damian Lazarus

Various Artists

Reflections001

Various Artists

Stories EP

Mano Le Tough

Mano Le Tough, aka Ireland's Niall Mannion, now based in Berlin, proves that he's really a softie at heart on these three tracks for Ben Watt's Buzzin' Fly label. The bells, staccato percussion and trim arpeggios of "Stories" feel skeletal at first, but it fills up with Mannion's own heartfelt vocals, hugging the line between club track and pop song. The instrumental "Take It Back" is even more of a tearjerker, like vintage New Order spun through a house-music kaleidoscope, while "From the Start" examines Sonic Youth's melancholic sonics with a narcotic electro lens.

People of the World EP

Two Armadillos

Despite the name, Two Armadillos do not lumber. Members Martin Dawson and Giles Smith, a co-founder of London and Ibiza's Secretsundaze parties, know how to make their beats snap like a beach towel, or a dry martini at an early hour. "Warriors Return" is immaculate deep house that strikes a perfect balance between wispy chords, crisp drum machines, sinewy acoustic bass and staccato sax; "People of the World" is a drunken hip-hop-disco tumble in the style of Pal Joey. Everything "Night Ridin" knows about chords and filters it learned from Moodymann, but that doesn't detract from its modal rush.

Birdsong

Abyss

Ever shuttling between the acoustic and the electronic, Ben Watt -- half of Everything But the Girl, head of the housey Buzzin' Fly label -- knows the importance of piano in dance music. Back in 2004, he released Justin Martin's "Sad Piano," a masterful pairing of jacking drums and melancholy trills; now he gives us "Birdsong," by Italy's Abyss, with languid chords buttressed by a muscular left-hand line. Flowers and Sea Creatures' remix swaps the original's determined skip for a shoegazing shuffle; a rework by Walls member Snoretex picks up the Chicago thread again, lo-fi but high-tension.

Good Children Make Bad Grown Ups

Various Artists

Drifting Back

Genius Of Time

I don't know much about Genius of Time aside from the fact that they're Swedish and they like the sound of classic American house and techno in the vein of Moodymann or Pal Joey. "Drifting Back," from their new EP for Rotterdam's Clone Royal Oak label, is a masterpiece of midtempo house. Its groove, carved from drum machines and sampled congas, cuts through the mix with an unusual sense of presence; its looped Rhodes solo and vocal harmonies are an invitation to levitation. I can't get enough of this jaunty, hypnotic jam.

What Works

Fudge Fingas

Edinburgh's Firecracker Records has been around since 2004, but its profile has risen thanks to limited-run pressings on clear wax that fetch absurd collectors' prices. For the rest of us, fortunately, there's digital. Fudge Fingas gets downright dreamy on "What Works," a blissful paean to the golden era of Chicago house that earns every second of its nine-minute length with graceful Rhodes leads, stubby bass and liquid effects. Ukraine's Vakula proves why he's one of house music's brightest rising stars with a dubby remix that pays tribute to Chez Damier and Ron Trent.

DJ-KiCKS

Soul Clap

I Can Never Get Enough EP

Gadi Mizrahi

In The End (I Want You to Cry)

Tensnake

Reckless With Your Remix 01

Azari & III

Change in You / Infinity Dub

Jimpster

Cool Down EP

Maya Jane Coles

Hot Waves Compilation, Vol. 1

Various Artists

In 2011, no house-music property is hotter than the Hot Creations and its proprietors Hot Natured, aka Jamie Jones and Lee Foss. Pulling the best bits off the CDRs that circulate among their extended posse of DJ pals, they launch a new sub-label, Hot Waves, to explore new directions in their trademark sound. It's a humid, urban style, full of jacking drum grooves and sexual suggestion; disco gives it its shape, and R&B its juicy hue. Swaggering and louche, it's music for L.A. rooftops and Ibizan terraces, and parties in their third day -- when grooves start unwinding and time stands still.

Boy Trouble

Benoit & Sergio

10 Years of secretsundaze

Various Artists

The Drawing Board

Art Department

In 2011, underground dance music found itself swept up in a wave of deep house that was moody, melodic and finely attuned to classic '90s sounds. Toronto's Art Department stake a position at the forefront of the new guard with their debut album, The Drawing Board. Dusky bass lines twine around trim machine drumming and fizzy analog synths, kicking up late-night grooves that run a little slower and a lot deeper than house music's more commercial permutations. The best tracks are topped off with melancholic vocals that turn them into earworms burrowing straight into your doubting heart.