Maybe its just me, but does anybody call what they play deep progressive house?
I’m just asking because everytime someone ask what I play and I respond with progressive house the immediate response is big room house. Not anything wrong with that, I just don’t play it at all. I guess I see what I play bordering trance, progressive house, and deep house. But I have always seen music like this as true progressive house, not what is being touted as progressive house now (ala Avicii, Alesso, SMH etc). I guess like Jaytech, Shingo Nakamura, Claes rosen, Sergey Tkachev, Dinka, Fon.Lehman, Ad Brown, Aerofeel5.
Does anyone play music like this frequently? Any recommendations?
What was named Progressive House originally in 1991/1992 was some of my favourite music.
House music bass lines got fattened up and had a good dose of chunkiness, at a time when many House club Dj’s were playing a lot of New York Garage. Drum beats became more tribal, with interesting sounds thrown in. The mixes had a lovely sense of space that enabled dub echoes thrown onto vocals, or other mix elements, to swim around the club; ethnic percussion was experimented with along with unusual samples previously not used in House tracks. I loved them.
Unfortunately, the tracks then started to move away from using ethnic percussion, tempos increased, and lost the great dubby feel I liked, then cheesey prog/trance house came in from the likes of BT and Sasha. (Sasha had been playing reasonable stuff in '91/'92). Many of the Dj’s who had been playing the original prog style moved onto Techno, and the likes of Leftfield who were some of the first of this style moved onto darker/harder, more Techno styles.
What is called Progressive House today, I hate. I find it cheesy, with naff melodies, formula cheesy synths. The mix is too cluttered and the horrible ridiculous break downs.
Here are 3 tracks that oppitimised the first Prog House scene
The way Drum Club’s “You make me feel so good” (Deep ‘N’ Hard Mix) builds at the start is so exciting. I think many producers really should go back and listen to some of the older tracks and realise you can get vibe and excitement without the traditional formula break downs. The arrangement of the track is excellent. There isn’t a point in it where I feel it’s got boring. It drops and then subtly builds.
I hear you bud … I feckin’ despise that the name progressive being used to describe the David Guetta/SHM style … TRIPE!
BT yes .. he was a Complete remix whore back then, in fairness to Sasha while he had a few commercial releases his sets we’re always slick as fuck and for the most part on the super low of cheese, at least until he started using Ableton haha.
Freaking the choice of tracks though …Intoxication .. mmmm..chills up my spine.
I can see where you are coming from though, somewhere along the line trance riffs semi merged with progressive Basslines and “elements” to become the big room Rennasiance style progressive of the 90’s - naughties.
Anyhoo’s to the OP here’s a few I think you’ll like
I tend to agree, like a lot of definitions, they start out as one thing and can often be hijacked and it’s a great shame when a genre you love gets entangled with current, pop dance music.
For me the definitive mix album for Progressive House is Renaissance - The Mix Collection 1 - Sasha & Digweed. A beautifully put together mix album.
I find Anjunadeep, for example, still put out some really good, in my terms of reference, deep progressive house.
I TOTALLY feel you man. Somewhere along the line the ad hoc definition of Prog became synonymous with the fluffy, feel-good, “anthemy” stuff from the people you mentioned. While that stuff is fine and dandy for what it is, it ain’t the groove I’m looking for.
It’s not just normal “deep” house (although a lot of the stuff from Jaytech, Beckwith, Maor Levi, etc. gets classified that way). Too many techy and trancey elements for it to just be “Deep”.
It’s also not just normal “tech-house” either, too melodic.
I haven’t heard the term “tech-trance” thrown around much for a few years, but some of the stuff that was being referred to as such a few years back has an element of it.
Jay Lumen, Guy J, and Mark Knight all produce stuff that usually get classified as Tech-House or Techno but has this sound in my mind. The stuff I think we’re discussing has elements from House, Deep, Prog, Tech-House, Techno, AND Trance.
I still remember in the mid 2000s when prog seemed to disappear totally, even the core prog djs aka sasha and digweed moved away from the deep dark chuggy prog sound. I thought it was pretty much dead to be honest. But …7 years later, it’s still going strong. Plenty of it at Eastern Electric in London a few weeks ago
BTW I agree with you that people refer to it as ‘big room house’ - my mate was doing that from the early 2000s. It’s essentially what it is. You play most prog in a small club and it sounds a bit weird. It’s a festival sound! E.g. Sven Vath - Barbarella (Deep Dish mix)
I wouldn’t go as far to say its deep house. But it certainly is frustrating saying prog house to be mistaken for big room prog. The origins of it certainly have a dark, tech feel to them. I personally enjoy tracks that have prog elements to them that are fairly funky as well. These are probably more house then anything, but I have found myself gravitating toward playing music like this.
That’s the problem with people creating sub-genres. Once you start, there is an endless number that can and will be created. I stopped trying to make sense of the way different areas define certain genres. The house I play has been called deep house, ethereal house, tribal house, minimal house, chill house, etc. It’s all house music to me.
