Pianos are back!
The piano is back — centre stage — and coming to an
Ibiza club terrace near you!
Words: BEN MURPHY
T
hink of disco, funk, Richie In 2009 a different world lies before us, techno to full-on gospel grooves, has riffs are memorable, hook you in, engage
Haven’s ‘Going Back To My with a political situation uncertain and a etched a razor-sharp, futuristic missive your emotions, elements imperative to the
Roots’, Donald Byrd’s ‘Love Has global recession biting at our heels. But that builds from funky space-age synths growth of the movement of dance music as
Come Around’, old hardcore, something has happened in music, the to an enormous low-down piano drop. we see it today, from Ce Ce Rogers’ ‘Some-
Frankie Knuckles, Marshall Jefferson, Italo return of colour, feeling — and pianos. And he claims it’s high time that big riffs day’ to its hardcore counterpart ‘Sweet
house… Sick of dark, maudlin excessively electronic returned to club cuts. Harmony’ by Liquid, which samples it.
There’s something about an emotive, sounds, house heads are seeking some- “The thing is with a lot of these minimal “Riffs, melodies, sounds are all very
surging piano lick that seems to combine thing a little more uplifting and interesting parties, a lot them are just all guys, just important to building uplifting songs,
so perfectly with a thunking kick drum to in their music again. People are bored of sausage parties, and at the end of the day giving people the option to sing along,
create a hotwire to our hearts and make us minimal grooves, the tide has turned and girls want to go out and have fun too, they to feel along, to create a hook,” believes
feel good. After a time in the shadows, the those black and whites are everywhere. don’t want to stand around at a sausage Kevin Saunderson, founder of Inner City,
piano is back, centre stage, with producers “Minimal dominated for so long but people party! They want songs they can remember KMS Records and one of the original Detroit
from across the dance spectrum ready to got bored of just a kick and a snare with or sing. The theory applies that if you get techno and house innovators. “What it boils
make us believe in the power of true house some weird effects so they’ve started to the girls dancing then 90% of your job is down to is that you have to be able to feel
music again. write melodies again,” believes Will Saul, done.” it. I’m not sure in minimal there was much
the DJ/producer who also runs forward- to feel.”
Wind the clock back two years and what thinking labels Aus and Simple. Spirit of House For Joey Negro — another DJ/producer
seemed impossible had happened: the Melodies have been fundamental to the who has seen and been behind many of the
music of laptop nerds had infi ltrated the Perhaps the most potent realization of the spirit of house music since the genre was musical shifts in dance music — the cyclical
mainstream, and crowds lapped up the new piano resurgence in house is Dennis fi rst coined by Chicago legends Marshall nature of house has demanded its return to
bleeps and whooshes, intoxicated by Ferrer’s new cut for Defected, ‘Sinfonia Jefferson, Jesse Saunders and Steve ‘Silk’ the melodies and pianos absent for so long.
the abstract noises. Melodies, much less Della Notte’. Ferrer, respected by the under- Hurley. If house is disco’s revenge, as “It became unfashionable to play tracks
songs, were nowhere. Piano riffs and, hor- ground and mainstream alike and capable Frankie Knuckles once stated, then the pi- with obviously uplifting breakdowns and
ror of horror, vocals, a distant memory. of producing anything from Detroit-lapped ano is its primary weapon. Piano and synth chord progressions for a while,” says Negro,
“but that couldn’t go on forever.
“Lots of DJs are sheep and will shift their
style to whatever they think is in vogue,
so if it becomes big piano screamers then
that’s what they’ll play — as long as the
dancefl oor is busy.”
But it’s not just the sounds produced by this
new wave of retro housers that hark back
to the late-’80s and early-’90s. The political
and social conditions of Britain and the US
in 2009 harks back to similar conditions at
the turn of the decade when house music
was fi rst becoming a potent, powerful
sonic force. LA-based DJ/producer D Fuse
believes the economic situation has caused
a sea change in how crowds react to music
and reckons that revellers are releasing
their tensions in a positive way by dancing
away their troubles.
“People overall are out to escape the stress
that’s fl oating around," says D Fuse. “There
seems to be a new energy of people just
letting go and these great melodies that are
coming out are amplifying that energy in an
incredibly positive way.”
036
www.djmag.com
DJIB1.piano feature.indd PROOFED.indd 36 28/5/09 13:54:41
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