Switch

• Genre: House

About

You might call Dave Taylor a jack of all trades. Since the turn of the century, he's produced deep, funky house music -- indeed, "jacking" house, in the parlance of '80s Chicago -- for labels like Classic, Freerange and Jesse Rose's Dubsided, both in the groups Induceve and Switch and on his own as Solid Groove. (Switch, initially a duo with Induceve member Trevor Loveys, is now Taylor solo.) But he's also produced hits for M.I.A. and Santogold, energizing their pop structures with a distinctly underground sensibility. Despite the range of his sound, Taylor's music always bumps and throbs, propelled by guttural bass lines and fat, distorted drum samples; his wobbly rhythms and unruly sonics have led to his music being branded "fidget house," an apt description of his herky-jerky sense of groove. Switch's biggest hit to date is 2006's "A Bit Patchy," an update of the Incredible Bongo Band's famous "Apache" (get it?) overlaid with an infectious sample of dancehall vocals; in 2008, Freerange released a collection of Taylor's solo and duo tracks and remixes for the label.

- Philip Sherburne