Jeremy Underground returns with a follow up to his hugely acclaimed first volume of classic deep house cuts this month. My Love Is Underground II follows a similar line in unknown 90’s dance music, stretching out over three records for the best pressing quality. Groovestyle’s ‘Love’ and Mindchime’s ‘Diso Boogie’ set this tone perfectly, both fine tracks centred around classic bouncing baselines and smooth edged synths. Elsewhere, on Sublevel 3’s ‘Somewhere Somehow’, Granite’s ‘Even Deeper’ and Sanjay’s ‘Untitled’ we see – with breathtaking clarity – the inspiration behind MLIU releases like Paris Underground Trax – Vol 1.
There’s more to the compilation than deeperama, however, while DJ Tool & Co’s ‘Hey Mr Shy One’ runs a bit too close to dated UK Rave to be played by many contemporary DJs, Richard Purser’s ‘To the Sky’ is a cleverly building peak time piano and organ tune to rival the best of them. The highlights of the release actually come towards the end with Techno Soul’s gloriously unhinged and rough ‘Expectations’; a frenzied mess that is somehow hugely effective. Final track ‘Instinct’ by Mind Search is the best thing on here, sounding more like something that could have been released on Peacefrog, and tied together by one of the best pads I’ve heard for months.
Jeremy Underground is one of the most respected house music selectors on the scene, without doubt. Spending time with him in a club will almost certainly give you a whole host of new tracks you’d desperately love to identify, and this is his enduring appeal. What’s to be said though, for a scene that resolutely worships a style of music now almost 30 years old, to the extent that a reissue compilation will almost certainly top the charts of all our favourite dance music retailers? Aren’t we a bit worried that a famous DJ can arrive at a club and exclusively play music from the early 90s to a load of kids who weren’t born when it was released, the tropes somehow still not having been worn out and replaced by new ideas? This constant excavation of the past both encourages our new musicians to sound just like they would have done in 1993, and takes time and record money from DJs who could otherwise be finding and supporting the seeds of new styles that could be germinating. The rhetoric is that the music is timeless, but we should be striving to record and play music that makes 90s music feel dated, not cutting edge. This said, Jeremy Underground is respected for a reason – he does play great music, and there’s unquestionably a lot of that on this collection.
My Love Is Underground II is out now on Favourite Recordings. Grab it from Bandcamp.
