The 10 best deep house tracks of the 1990s
Was this house music’s greatest ever period?
It’s time to talk about the deep house sound of the 1990s.
Deep house — characterised by soothing chords, synth melodies and subtle vocals — had been around since Mr Fingers’ “Can You Feel It?” and “Do You Know Who We Are?” by Virgo.
It faded in the post-acid rave and club years of the early 1990s , replaced by uplifting Italian piano tracks and tougher, more rhythmic progressive house.
But in 1994, it started to appear again, most notably in the form of this quirky techno-jazz track from Austrian Patrick Pulsinger, which begins our Top 10.
In the 1990s, deep house — as opposed to straight-up house, techno and garage — was rarely found in clubs, except in warm-up sets. But if you got into your favourite night in 1995, there’s a chance you’d have heard this. “So deep, so liquid.”
In the UK, Andy Weatherall was the leading proponent of deep house — playing it on his Kiss FM show, pushing it at his Bloodsugar club and creating a dubby, glitchy UK deep house sound as Two Lone Swordsmen and here, Deanne Day.
I interviewed Weatherall for Mixmag Update in February 1997 on the release of Two Lone Swordsmen’s “Swimming Not Skimming” EP. What he says about house music’s maturity (and its right to be respected) still rings true.
Another UK artist adding pads, strings and Rhodes piano to house was Putney’s Omid Nourizadeh (16B). His “Secrets” track (note the crunchy Roland 707/808 drum patterns) was a standard at Bloodsugar.
While finding deep house in nightclubs involved silly-early entry (“Yeah, I’ll be there at 7.30pm”), buying it was easy from shops like Eastern Bloc in Manchester, Creative Sounds in Kingston — and London’s Tag Records, where I bought this.
Jeff Mills isn’t a name you’d associate with deep house, but in 1995 he veered into tribal tech-house with his “Purpose Maker” EP and then the most gorgeous, hypnotic deep house with this 909-driven classic.
Ludovic Navarre’s St Germain project fused swinging house beats with live jazz instrumentation and vocals. The result was halfway between MAW and Charlie Parker — with tracks like this standing out.
Belgium — with producers like Dobre and Jamez — had mined a rich seam on labels like Touché. Meanwhile, up the road, Amsterdam’s Steve Rachmad delivered one of the 1995’s most beautiful EPs with the gorgeous “Asphyx”.
While much of what we’d call deep house in the 1990s came from Europe, the US still managed to create some classics. And few did it better than Chris Brann’s Wamdue Project. Just check the piano breakdown out here.
This rundown finishes with what I’d consider the ultimate ’90s deep house record. Produced by Andy Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood, “Rico’s Helly” brings melody, rhythm and a deceptive simplicity together in one ever-evolving deep house classic.
