When record shopping, I have one rule. If I see a Hooj Choon, I buy it.

The classical Hooj Choons label is interested in four kind of styles:
1st: most well known for progressive house and trancy stuff
2nd: some are underground tech house
3rd: few ones are straight house
4th: 90ties RAVE! back to the old skool
find your gem!

A good rule of thumb when searching through these is the change of sleeve. The Lost Language-ish sleeve design showed the switch from often great, if not sometimes cheesy trance to Y2K deep prog which has really aged poorly most the time.

Always sure floor fillers in the trance/bangin' house clubs around London mid-late 1990s - and you'd always hear Graham Gold and Judge Jules drop their tunes on Kiss FM before you went out. Great productions, just great records - Hooj really sums up raving in London in the second half of the 90s like nothing else.

From Oakey to Sasha, from Digweed to Tenaglia, if there was ever one label to sum up the whole "Progressive" scene in the 1990s, forget Platipus, Fluid, Quad, it just has to be Hooj Choons...Dream Universe, Movin through your system, cafe del mar, invisible, everytime, space manoeuvres, dimension, greece 2000, Body shine....the lists endless, like it says on the tin "Occasional Providers of half-decent house"

A classic label up to about 2001. 2002 and after the releases are extremely boring. Before then it was pretty much a surefire win with every release. Early releases in the mid 90's were excellent progressive then they released some top quality trance / progressive for a few years.

The big change came when the design changed on the sleeves, maybe Silvio Ecomo - Standing and Pilgrimage to Paradise were the exceptions but generally 2002 onwards it became quite lacklustre. Maybe this more 'bland' sound contributed to their demise. But then again, the trance / progressive scene had all but gone in 2002 and cheese took over so i suppose they had no choice. Still collected them all almost though.

Killer Progressive House label.

Of all the music and labels that I have been collecting only Hooj Choons has had such a constant flow of excellence regarding their releases over the years they were active that I somehow feel forced to write something about them. I have been considering this writing a long time after all I have way over hundred releases from their catalog (and actually determined to seek the rest).

So what´s so special about this label? I was reading some conversation over forums where there was talked about the greatest electronic music labels of all time and someone mentioned Hooj Choons. Suddenly it was everyone fighting against this opinion and the conversation ended everyone laughing for their effort (this was some forum for IDM-stuff, so it was obvious there would be critical opinions ahead). Anyway, I think most of the arguments were kind of immature and showed unawareness of the history and development of the electronic music scene in the whole scale. Sure it´s a fact that there has been lots of labels that put out more experimental and forward thinking releases over the years (R&S, Warp, ...) but I think it´s a bit harsh to say that a label that worked over 15 years independent in slightly more commercial venues would be less effective and meaningfull, specially when they were able to move forward, change their sound in progressive manner and always keep their input high quality! I personally think that Hooj Choons shoul be regarded as one of the few special labels that changed the sound of electronic music for good!

The excellence behind their work lies down to one man: Rej Jerry (Jeremy Dickens)! Even though he was not alone making all it happen I believe that he was responsible for finding the talent and quality behind several artists. Hooj was always ahead of everyone seeking really good tracks to be signed for their label. Quality that really turned them genious was however the nose for talented producers to remix the signed tracks and turn them to Hooj Choons sound. The list is long but at least these names should be praised: Martin Freeland (Man With No Name), John Graham (from the Red Parrot label) and the rest of the Tilt posse, Matt Darey (Li Kwan, Bi Boy Action Squad, Lost Tribe), Jesse Skeens (Medway), Omid Nourizadeh, Nalin & Kane and several others!

Hooj was also able to surf the waves of evolving music scene. Their dramatic curve spanning over the years had at least three different noticeable stages. First one being melodic and almost happy house period (releases around 1-60), second one for the progessive and somewhat euphoric house and trance sound (up to around 100th release) with out forgetting some techno and breakbeat orientated releases and finally the matured and sophisticated progressive, electro and breakbeat influenced house and disco that dominated until the closure of the label in 2003. There was always hints for what was coming in the future in their releases, because the producers behind the remixes had their recognicable sound and I feel they had artistic liberacy to create their own path.

Of course the original material was good at it`s own (Greece 2000, Stage One, Sacred Cycles, Escape (Drivin to Heaven), Dont You Want Me, and so on...) and that proves the skills of Red Jerry to pick the cherries, to be outstanding. And when he found tracks that were too far out from the main label to sell they introduced some fine sublabels to do the job (Prolekult is one heck of a label for the acid and hardtrance heads)!

I haven´t found a single release from their catalog yet that I wouldn´t have liked. Every release is a winner and if the original track has dated somewhat badly, there is always some remixes that still sound fresh! My personal favourites are Billy Hendrix – Body Shine, 16B – Escape, Red Sun – This Love (Our House Remix), Jark Prongo – Moving Trough Your System, Katcha – Touched by God and naturally all the L.S.G, Space Manouevres, Nalin & Kane and Lost Tribe releases.

I strongly suggest that everyone who`s interested about evolution of (commercial) electronic music to listen at least the excellent compilations they released: Some of these were Hooj 1-3, Deeper Shades of Hooj 1-3, Nu-Progressive Era and specially if you can find Red Jerry`s Late Night Drive mix (for the Muzik mag) to sum up the late sound.