These producers, being cultural products of the initial House Music indoctrination of the ’80s, show off many different sides and sounds of the city—from the suburbs to the south side, from the north side to the west side—even the Pilsen neighborhood is represented in this group.
Incorporating a diverse offering of sounds, styles, and approaches, this multicultural movement was spearheaded and supported by Chicago imprints such as Relief, Cajual, Prescription, Balance, Organico, Large Music, Guidance, Classic Music Company, and many more from Chicago and beyond.
This time period reflects a further excursion into dance music as an art form, with less adherence to record industry format standardizations. Stripped down, beat-driven tracks with only percussive ideas sit effortlessly alongside tracks with elements of jazz fusion and among vocal records that don’t possess a chorus or a verse.
Through these hybrids of varied musical lexicons and the incorporation of many spheres of genre influence, this cohort of artists created a body of work that now commands even greater global attention than their predecessor’s. This Future Sound of Chicago was highly influential to many artists that proceeded them, both internationally and in Chicago. Artists such as Daft Punk, Laurent Garnier, Slam, St. Germain, and many more have all cited this wave of Chicago House Music artists as partial catalysts for their own artwork.
