Party in da house
House music became a victim of its own success and was written off as a fad. Beginning as an underground scene in Chicago, it spread throughout the US and Europe, and before you could say 'aceeed' the genre was commercialised.
From independent raves, house moved to the mainstream, best summed up by the ghastly genre of 'handbag house'.
Undeserving of the house tag, handbag remixed the pop of Madonna, Britney Spears and U2, and the more it was played, the more it showed how low the genre had sunk.
But the contagious nature of the music and the desire of DJs and producers to breathe life into it has kept it on the turntables, and this year house came of age, celebrating its 21st birthday.
DJ Deep (Cyril Etienne), who's been spinning house for more than 12 years, will play Hong Kong for the first time this weekend.
The 34-year-old Parisian plays several nights a week, releases music and produces acts. This year, he set up two record labels: House Music Records with British company BBE and Deeply Rooted House Records.
Although house has generated a huge number of sub-genres - such as hard house, acid, deep house, ambient, garage and progressive, to name a few - DJ Deep prefers to be known as a house DJ.
'When I say I play house music, I'm not saying I'm retro,' he says from a recording studio in Paris, where he's working on volume two of City to City, compilation albums of rare and classic house and techno tracks he started to release last year.
'I'm staying true to the roots and philosophy, which is to be open-minded. I try to play as many of the styles as possible.'
Although an acceptance of other styles is what gives house its richness, DJ Deep says the influence of other music has robbed it of some of the raw unpolished sound that captivated people in the early years.
For this reason, he says he likes to root out obscure tunes to release on House Music Records, so people have a chance to hear underground tracks that formed the genre.
'Sometimes these artists only did one or two 12-inch singles and only sold 500 copies, so it's pretty difficult to trace them. But when I play this music to my friends most of them are blown away.
'Kids have an opinion of the music without knowing it,' he says. 'I'm trying to bring back some of the tracks so there's a clearer idea of what the music was at the beginning.'
Whereas the House Music label gives Deep a chance to connect with artists he admires from the past, his other label, Deeply Rooted House, enables him to produce his own music, as well as that of his contemporaries and new talent.
Deep says he isn't sure what to expect of Hong Kong, having only been here once, when he was 12, but experience tells him the show is likely to be infectious.
'Obviously, I don't speak and I don't talk, but the beauty of house music is that I can go anywhere in the world and it's a way to communicate.'
Club Clicquot Trois, featuring DJ Deep, Sat, 11pm, Kee Club, 6/F, 32 Wellington St, Central, free. Guest list inquiries: Xenia Chu, 2826 2621
