The story behind the most misunderstood genre in dance music.

For well over a decade, tech house was commonly assumed to be a byword for uninspired, cookie-cutter dance music. Combining techno's outer-space sensibility with the swung grooves of house, tech house became largely associated with big room commercial clubs, and the term was often casually used as a pejorative to describe any mid-tempo dance music thought to be in bad taste. But in recent years, that's started to change.

A new generation of DJs have been rediscovering the '90s productions that initially defined the tech house sound, tracks that are a million miles away from what the style transformed into as the 2000s progressed. Many modern listeners wouldn't think to associate these timeless tracks with what tech house became, which begs the question: what happened? What was tech house in the first place? Where did it come from? Why did it change? And why is it back? In this video essay, the DJs and producers who built the culture, watched it decay and reemerge, set the record straight.


Narrator: Moxie
Writer: Ray Philp
Editor: Sophie Misrahi
Dubbing Mixer: Guy Clarke
Motion Graphics: Lawrie Miller
Music Consultant: Dave Mothersole

Archive Footage/Images:

Dafina Krstevska Richards / dy-na-mix 
One2 Watch Media
Kappa FuturFestival
Mark Anthony Tarling
Mile Staniskovski
Lucianocadenza
Twistedbobby
Boing Poum Tchak!
DJ Mag
Nicole Moudaber
Miami Music Week
Conkermon
Joe Dawson
Bruw69
Maria Harlow
Mickysheffield
Tomorrowland
Get Physical Music
Auroom Record Label
Sunwaves Festival
PIRATE.COM
Boiler Room

Music in order of appearance:

O.H.M. - Oceanic (Original Mix) [Defective Records] 1995
Housey Doingz - Gobstopper [Wiggle Classics] 1996
E-Dancer - World of Deep [Play It Again Sam] 1998
Pure Science - Say It [Pure Science Communications] 1999
A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray [Warlock Records] 1988
LFO - LFO [Warp Records] 1990
Baby D - Let me be your Fantasy [Production House] 1992
Leviticus - Burial [Philly Blunt Records] 1994
Goldie - Innercity Life [FFRR] 1994
Loco Dice - Definition (Nic Fanciulli Remix) 2010
M.A.N.D.Y. vs Booka Shade - Body Language [Get Physical Music] 2005
Two Right Wrongans - System Error (Original Mix) [Neotropiq] 2018
Asad Rizvi - Dual (Bushwacka! Remix) [Reverberations] 2005