DJ Deep
RESPECT IS BURNING PRESENTS DJ DEEP
(Virgin France/Astralwerks)

The fourth CD in the " Respect Is Burning " series highlighting the Paris disco of that name, Presents DJ Deep allows yet another Laurent Garnier protégé to strut his stuff to house-music fans. Deep’s taste sounds like 1990, a time when house’s original format — jazzy, soulful, and mellow — still prevailed but was beginning to give way to deeper and darker expressions. Deep’s set does the opposite, opening dark and fretful with Kerry Chandler’s 1992 deep-house classic " I’m Not Dreaming, " then segueing back to Logic’s " The Warning, " a 1990 work that was one of house’s first (and best-liked) ventures into deep stuff and the darkside.

It’s a song well worth revisiting. " The Warning " threw house music’s suavely joyous birthright into a bluesy turmoil that has not resolved itself even now. Deep — perhaps because he’s in Paris, not New York — sees it differently. In his set, as he sways smoothly from delicate " tribal " cuts like Lost Tribes of Ibadan’s " Avareh " and Osunlade’s " Cantos a Ochun & Oya " to falsetto guy vocals (in the manner of Ten City’s Byron Stingily) and baritone swoons redolent of Robert Owens and Michael Watford, " The Warning " is just another jazzy piano dance. The CD also features two cuts by the long (and unjustly) forgotten Blaze, " How Deep Is Your Love " and " Elements of Life, " the latter mixed by Little Louie Vega; " Life Goes On, " by Vega and Arnold Jarvis; and Kimara Lovelace’s trampy " Misery " as mixed by Lil’ Louis, yet another name from way back when.

Issue Date: April 19 - 25, 2001