DJ Deep - City To City

Those who have become accustomed to DJ Deep's deep, lush mixes (e.g., for the Distance label) have a major surprise in store when they get this album (or its sequel "DJ Deep presents City to City Part 2"; BBE/2006). Almost all of CD 1 and much of CD 2 take the listener back to the early roots of House and Deep House music and their principal influences, namely the Detroit Techno, early Acid House, and early Chicago House schools of underground dance music (hence the titular references to cities). Compared with modern incarnations of Deep House, the late-1980's/early-1990's sound here is dry and lean, often acid-tinged/spacey/dubby, and truly continents away from what we now know as Deep House. However, Deep House enthusiasts won't come away entirely empty-handed: the tracks by Mr Fingers, Kerri Chandler, Byron Burke, and Braxton Holmes come especially to mind in this regard. This retrospective mix-compilation is, therefore, recommended only to historians of underground dance music and those purists who like their House music well-aged, acidic, and minimally lean. These folks should also check out several similarly-themed retro-mixes by other authoritative figures in House, including Danny Tenaglia's "Choice: A Collection of Classics" (Azuli/2002), and Masters At Work's "The Kings Of House" (BBE/2005), which came out at around the same time as "City To City".