1.Prologue
In the early 90's, the music being played on the U.K. club scene was mostly imported: house and techno music from the U.S. and euro disco from continental Europe. The U.K. had yet to develop its own unique house sound. While there were some English DJs championing acid house and eclectic, genre-hopping playlists, the music itself was still mainly imported from overseas. The underground scene did give rise to what came to be known as rave culture, but it wasn't until the mid-90s that big beat music rose and broke into the mainstream.
Much like the hippie movement and psychedelic rock gave rise to the distinct subgenre of progressive rock in the U.K., the confluence of dance music led to the development of a subgenre called progressive house in the early 90s. The name “progressive house" was coined by Dom Phillips, an editor at the British dance music/club culture magazine Mixmag. In a 1992 article, he described the developing sound in these words:
“Things are changing. There’s a new breed of hard but tuneful, banging but thoughtful, uplifting and trancey British house that, while most at home with the trendier Balearic crowd, is just as capable of entrancing up a rave crowd. Once again, it’s possible to go out and hear mad but melodic music that makes you want to dance. Progressive House we’ll call it. It’s simple, it’s funky, it’s driving, and it could only be British."
Mixmag was started in London in 1983 as a 16-page black and white subculture newsletter run by Disco Mix Club, a remix label that catered to professional DJs. When house music started coming into the U.K. in the 80s, editor Dave Seaman gave the newsletter a facelift and turned it into a magazine that covered the dance music scene and club culture in general. During the peak of the acid house scene, it is said to have had a circulation of 70,000.
Recognizing progressive house as an exciting, up-and-coming genre, Disco Mix Club started an in-house label called Stress to cultivate young producers in the scene, with Dave Seaman in charge of A&R.
In this article, we will look at the rise of the U.K. progressive house scene.
2.Sasha & John Digweed
The two leading figures of the U.K. progressive house scene in the 90s were Alexander Coe (a.k.a. Sasha) and John Digweed.
Sasha was born in Wales in 1969. He was first exposed to acid house at the Hacienda in Manchester in 1988, and he soon started visiting the club weekly, and eventually relocated to a nearby neighborhood. He began buying jazz records and teaching himself how to mix, and then started working as a DJ in order to finance his record buying. At the end of the 80s Hacienda resident Jon DaSilva got Sasha a job at the club, and taught him beatmatching and key mixing.
In 1990, Sasha began playing at a club in Stoke-on-Trent called Shelley’s Laserdome, where he would obtain a residency that would give him the freedom to develop his own sound. During this period Dave Seaman also had a residency at Shelley’s Laserdome. Sasha began to gain visibility for his funky mix of acid house, Italian piano house and a cappellas. Soon, he was a major figure on the rave scene, and Mixmag would make him its first DJ cover star, along with the copy “Sasha Mania: The first DJ pin-up?"
After a few years, Sasha left his position at Shelley’s Laserdome because of increasing gang violence in and around the club. He accepted an offer to work at a new club in Mansfield called Renaissance, and there he would meet future partner-in-crime John Digweed.
John Digweed was born in the southern seaside town of Hastings in 1967. He started DJing as a teenager, and soon began organizing his own club nights. He became especially well known for the raves he held on Hastings Pier, where he invited DJs and musical acts such as Carl Cox and The Prodigy to perform. The events became so successful that the influx of attendees greatly contributed to the local economy.
In 1993, Digweed sent a mixtape demo to the founder of Renaissance nightclub, Geoff Oakes. Oakes happened to listen to the tape just when Sasha dropped in, and the two decided that Digweed would be a great addition to the club’s roster. Soon thereafter, Sasha and Digweed began playing back-to-back sets and pushing each other to hone their skills. In February 1994, Sasha made his second appearance on the cover of Mixmag, this time with the headline, “Sasha: son of god?"
The pair’s back-to-back chemistry became so great that Renaissance asked them to mix a compilation album, Renaissance: The Mix Collection, which was released in October 1994 to promote the club’s sound as well as kick-start its new label. The three-disc masterpiece is said to be the first DJ mix released for commercial purposes, and would establish the format as key to spreading the progressive house sound.
Among the tracks is “For What You Dream Of", produced by Bedrock—a duo comprised of Digweed and Nick Muir—which drew attention after being featured on the soundtrack of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. It was subsequently re-released as a single on Disco Mix Club’s aforementioned Stress label. Digweed and Nick Muir would go on to found Bedrock Records in 1999, which has since become one of the most prestigious outlets for DJs and producers coming up in progressive house and techno.
Between 1994 and 2000, Sasha and Digweed would both perform and release a number of classic mix compilations as individual artists and as a duo. After a few tours of the U.S., they took up a residency at the legendary New York nightclub Twilo alongside Junior Vasquez, and they played monthly until the club’s closure in 2001. In 2002, they hopped onto a tour bus to travel across the U.S. on a kind of large-scale tour usually reserved for pop and rock artists. Their experience is chronicled in the documentary Sasha & John Digweed present: Delta Heavy. While progressive house was still a small scene compared to the big beat of Fatboy Slim, the Chemical Brothers, Underworld, and The Prodigy, it was unprecedented for DJs to tour the U.S. on a bus.
3.How Mix Compilations Supported the Spread of Progressive House
Sasha and John Digweed followed up the success of Renaissance: The Mix Collection with another mix compilation in 1996, this time released from Ministry of Sound in London: Northern Exposure. The first disc, titled “North", is atmospheric progressive house; the second disc, “South", is hard-hitting techno and trance. The compilation would begin the trend of conceptualizing mixes as a way to take listeners on a journey, and it would establish the direction that progressive house would take in the years to follow.
In 1996, the trance and progressive house label Global Underground began releasing mix compilations based on a particular city or location that a DJ had performed in. The series spotlighted DJs like Dave Seaman, Sasha, John Digweed, Paul Oakenfold, Danny Tenaglia, Darren Emerson, Deep Dish, and Carl Cox, and has the dubious distinction of being one of the first to feature a common mix compilation trope: a cover design featuring an exotic location with a usually less-than-photogenic DJ posing in front.
Another popular compilation series that takes the listener on a journey is the Cafe del Mar series, produced by the famous bar of the same name on Ibiza. The relaxing, Balearic feel will transport you to the Mediterranean.
The success of Sasha and John Digweed would also pave the way for other clubs to start their own labels and spread their sound through the medium of mix compilations. In addition to Renaissance and Ministry of Sound, other notable clubs/labels include the drum ‘n’ bass and techno temple Fabric and German techno king Sven Väth’s Cocoon. In the 2000s, Japanese clubs like Ageha and Ishino Takkyu’s indoor techno rave Wire would also release their own compilations in order to foster the Japanese dance music scene.
In recent years, the rapid growth of internet streaming services has meant that the market for mix compilation CDs has shrunk considerably, but the format is still popular among a subset of fans. Renaissance closed its doors as a club in 2007, but it continues to release a few singles a year on its label. For fans of progressive house, I recommend checking out the ongoing Global Underground compilation series, as well as the Balance series from the Australian label of the same name. Meanwhile, Sasha and John Digweed have also continued to release noteworthy compilations. Sasha blurred the line between original artist album and mix CD with his Involver series. John Digweed has released an impressive selection of his best live performances through his Live in... series.
●Recommended Progressive House DJ Mix Compilations
4.The Evolution of Progressive House
One of the unsolved mysteries of dance music is just what exactly falls under the banner of progressive house. Progressive is commonly a political term that refers to someone in favor of progress and change, improvement and reform, as opposed to wishing for things to remain as they are. In MUSIC & PARTIES #018, I wrote about progressive rock—a type of pretentious, technically brilliant but too often soulless rock that developed in the U.K. in the late 60s.
Progressive house, simply put, is dance music where layers of sound are added and subtracted to a track over an extended period of time. Whereas most pop music has an easily recognizable template of verse, bridge, and chorus, progressive house usually lacks a clear-cut template. While trance and mainstream EDM tracks usually culminate in a drum roll and what’s called the “drop", progressive house is usually much more fluid. Also, while American house music is usually characterized by gospel and soul-inspired vocals, progressive house is often instrumental. In terms of effects, progressive house uses a lot of delay and reverb effects to create an atmospheric feel. It is music that evokes a landscape or a cityscape; it is music that truly transports you.
Progressive house also had an anti-rave element, despite coming out of the U.K. rave scene. In contrast to the primal, fast, in-your-face party music usually played at raves, progressive house attempts to be more refined. This aspiration is best encapsulated in the name “Renaissance". Renaissance mix compilations are instantly recognizable for their cover designs, many of which are based on classical European paintings from the Renaissance.
The overtones of European elitism have meant that progressive house has often been unfavorably compared to progressive rock. Critics wonder why something as frivolous as dance music would aspire to the prestige and vision of classical music. In the 2000s, progressive house DJs continued to push their sound in their own direction, resulting in the genre being fractured into large number of subgenres. Those subgenres have continued to evolve, all the while remaining largely undefined, in the 2010s.
Perhaps most emblematic of this is the rise of tech house—a subgenre that blends hard techno beats with house melodies and grooves. Or to put it another way, any type of electronic music that does not squarely fit into either house or techno is labeled as tech house by default. Sasha and John Digweed have released tech house tracks. Carl Cox plays a blend of house and techno—his own distinct brand of tech house. The aforementioned club Fabric has hosted many tech house DJs over the years, even giving many of them a platform on its mix compilation series. One of the most iconic tech house tracks of all time is 2005’s “Body Language" by the German duo M.A.N.D.Y., and Booka Shade.
Sasha’s protege, James Zabiela, is also known as a tech house DJ, although in his case it arguably stems more from the fact that he is a tech wizard who pushes the limits of the latest technology to make his DJ sets fantastically trippy experiences.
In this way, progressive house splintered off into a number of different, deeper subgenres in the 2000s, while DJs themselves continued to come and go between the subgenres as the mood suits them.
Another group of progressive house DJs/producers took the sound in a more mainstream direction. Swedish DJs Eric Prydz and Swedish House Mafia mixed progressive house with trance drums and melodies. Meanwhile in North America, Kaskade and Deadmau5 made progressive house more uplifting and added a funky electro touch, respectively. The sound of these artists would come to be called electro house—a genre that broke through to the mainstream around 2010 and morphed into what we is now commonly referred to as EDM.
●Other Progressive House Picks
5.Epilogue
In recent years, it became perfectly normal for electronic dance music artists and DJs to perform on the biggest stages at music festivals. Fans of pop music have become accustomed to consuming EDM from big-name DJs in short, 60 to 90 minute sets.
But the true test of a DJ is not in short festival sets but in longer sets of two hours (roughly the length of a 2-CD compilation, or a 2-hour radio program like “Essential Mix”), four to five hours (roughly the length of a set a resident DJ plays), and sometimes sets that go on for 8+ hours. The beauty of a journey is not in the destination but in the journey itself, and a DJ needs more than an hour of peak time tunes to transport their audience to some faraway land—or make them forget about their day-to-day existence. At a festival, DJs need to start full-throttle, and sustain that energy throughout whatever little time they are given. A good mix compilation allows you to give yourself over to the DJ so that they can work their magic.
In recent years, music streaming services like Soundcloud, Mixcloud, and Spotify have made it unnecessary for DJs to limit themselves to the 74-minute capacity of a standard CD. What’s more, it feels like every DJ out there has their own internet radio show or podcast. Sasha has a great monthly podcast called “Last Night on Earth”, and John Digweed has a weekly internet radio show called “Transitions”. The market for CDs has been hit hard as a result. One big reason for this decline is the amount of work necessary to license tracks for a compilation, which often come from many different artists belonging to many different labels. Most mix compilations are pressed once, and quickly go out of production.
With the new coronavirus pandemic, parties and music festivals have been postponed around the world. DJs and party people all over are under self-quarantine. What will happen to 2020’s Ibiza season is anybody’s guess. In response, many DJs have begun live streaming sets from their homes on platforms like YouTube and Periscope. Last week Carl Cox received a lot of love for streaming a set of 90s rave classics—using three turntables, no less. Meanwhile, Instagram recently announced that it would be cracking down on live streams that include the use of unlicensed music.
My biggest gripe with internet streaming is the low audio quality. For a long time Soundcloud compressed files to 128kbps (the standard quality for MP3s), and recently started compressing them even further into 64kbps OPUS—basically equal to or worse than radio audio quality. That might work if you’re using AirPods to listen to music while communing on the train, but on any proper soundsystem the streams are practically unlistenable. Even Soundcloud premium users are limited to 256kbps ACC (the equivalent of an MP3 at 320kbps.)
Most of the audio on YouTube is also at 128kbps AAC or less. Ditto for Periscope. It’s not the fault of the DJs uploading their music, but rather the decision of the platforms to compress the audio to make the streaming experience smoother for users.
As BigBrother wrote in GEAR & BUSINESS #010, there are platforms out there that stream high-fidelity audio. The problem is their HD library is usually comprised of classical music, jazz, and some pop and R&B. Electronic dance music remains an underground genre. In a way, it makes sense—electronic dance music is meant to be felt on a dance floor, not listened to through headphones in your bedroom. DJs have their own podcasts and internet radio shows in order to promote their music and get people to come to their parties.
As we’ve seen in this article, mix compilations were also originally conceived as a way to promote clubs, labels, and artists. But the best of the crop—like the compilations from Renaissance and Global Underground—stand on their own as artistic statements as well as transcendent journeys to places you might have never been before. In this article I’ve attempted to select compilations that are available new on Amazon, but you can also find many of the classics used. They are worth seeking out—if you still own a CD player, that is.
