Ten City’s fifth album, 2021’s Judgement (Ultra), was a long time in the making—and not just because the crucial Chicago house group’s previous album, That Was Then, This Is Now, came out 27 years earlier. The origins of Judgement arguably go even further back than 1986, when Ten City producer Marshall Jefferson issued the foundational […]
Tag: Marshall Jefferson
Posted inMusic
Catholic school house
In November 2021, news broke that filled the Chicago house-music community with pride. Hometown house legends Ten City were nominated for a Grammy for Best Dance/Electronica Album for Judgement, their first full-length studio recording since 1994. Many Chicago fans remembered that around the time of the group’s formation in the mid-1980s, their producer, house pioneer […]
Posted inMusic
Farewell to unsung house-music architect Rodney Bakerr
Rodney Bakerr led early Wax Trax! group Strange Circuits, ran underground label Rockin’ House, and wrote ubiquitous house-music rhythm patterns for Roland.
Posted inMusic
Local producers Tensei create an electronic canvas of astral soul
Local producers Tensei create an electronic canvas of astral soul, Chicago house producer Derrick “Sleezy D” Harris passes away, and more.
Posted inMusic
Plugging into Chicago’s forgotten house venues
A tour and oral history of the long-gone spaces that birthed one of the foundational sounds in modern pop
Posted inMusic
How the USA fell for EDM, chapter one
In these excerpts from his lively and meticulous new book, The Underground Is Massive: How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America, longtime Reader contributor Michaelangelo Matos chronicles the three-decade ascent of EDM.