The international house scene has seen a major paradigm shift in recent years. Stark and soulless minimal techno gave way to deep melodic soul and slow-mo grooves, with the influences of disco, rare groove, and even hip-hop seeping into the four-on-the-floor mold and breaking it. The start of this sonic…

We’ve gotta give props to the folks at Kontrol Miami. All summer long, they’ve managed to run a successful underground EDM night at Mansion, the same club that purportedly kicked DJ Dennis Ferrer off the decks mid-set for not playing “commercial enough” back in February. Given the chance, the promoters…

Footrprintz is multi-intrumentalist producers Clarian North and Adam Hunter. The Montreal natives are currently their city’s most hotly-tipped house and techno crossover act, thanks to 2011’s auspicious Utopia EP on Visionquest, a label beloved by the techno heads with a taste for left-field dance-pop. After all, Footprintz’s North and Hunter…

SAFE Miami is turning five years old this month. Now that may mean something to you if you’re a regular Crossfade reader, because we’ve been following the electronic dance music tastemakers and promotions veterans since the beginning. And it’ll definitely mean something to you if you’re a regular on the…

The Drive Tour at Grand Central August 14

House music is currently embroiled in a hot steamy love affair with its own past. Look no further than the lush slow-mo vintage grooves of Scotland’s The Revenge, AKA Graeme Clark. As a master of the disco edit, Clark is keeping the old-school tradition of garage legends like Larry Levan…

As far as Hollywood action movies go, 2011’s Drive starring Ryan Gosling was a stylistic tour de force. And whether you’re one of the countless chicks swooning and drooling over RyGos, the dreamy yet dangerous loverboy-next-door or a dude amped up by Gosling’s stoic skull-cracking badassery, the one thing both…

When talking house music, Mexico is not the first place that comes to mind. But Guadalajara’s Balcazar & Sordo might be single-handedly changing that perception. Or at the very least, they’re at the top of a rapidly growing new wave of Mexican producers. The DJ-production duo has exploded practically overnight,…

The Dallas, Texas blog-turned-label French Express can do no wrong right now. Hotly-tipped artists on the young roster, like Jonas Rathsman, Perseus and Moon Boots, are stirring up a nu-disco storm in clubland. But the label’s undisputed star is Chris Malinchak, an NYC-based producer with a gift for retro-futurist disco…

London has been a major electronic dance music hub since the rave boom of the late ’80s. And when it comes to London house and techno parties with an authentic underground ethos, the name Secretsundaze reigns supreme. Launched by DJ-producers Giles Smith and James Priestly, the party has been going…

Kevin Saunderson didn’t just invent Detroit techno as part of the legendary Belleville Three with Juan Atkins and Derrick May. He also perfected the techno hit, catapulting the seminal D-Town sound across the Atlantic and onto the dancefloors of Europe, where rave culture was about to explode in the late…

Beyond all the hype, there’s a reason the UK’s Crosstown Rebels is currently the most lauded underground electronic dance music label in the world — number one on Resident Advisor’s prestigious poll. The label takes chances on artists of substance, with authentic voices and stories to tell — timeless music…

Don’t even try to pinpoint down Kenneth James Gibson. The chameleonic Los Angeles-based musician and producer has basically waged war against categorization over the past two decades. And he changes monikers just as often as he changes his sound. In the ’90s it was noise pop as the Furry Things…

See also Stacey Pullen in “Six Best Club Parties on South Beach This Weekend.” Last month, we here at Crossfade had a chat with second-wave Detroit techno legend Rick Wade about “disposable tracks” vs. “substance.” One of Wade’s homeboys from that second wave is celebrated DJ-producer Stacey Pullen, throwing down…

If you’re a veteran EDM head, then German DJ-producer Ian Pooley probably needs no introduction. The rest of you would do well to get acquainted with Mr. Pooley’s body of work, because he is one of the true, enduring talents on the international dance music scene. If Pooley’s name is…

It’s quite appropriate that Berlin DJ-producer Alex Niggemann titled his debut long player Paranoid Funk. It’s a clever description of his sound, which can be dark and moody. Or anxious like a bout of drug-induced paranoia. But a Niggemann track is never lacking in proper floor-ready funk goodness. This sound…

The classic house revival is well underway, sweeping across the international dance music scene as young producers who weren’t even old enough to walk in the ’90s revel in that decade’s sound. Sadly, a lot of these kids are probably unaware that among the pioneers of that deep house sound…

Miami can trace its royal bass lineage all the way back to ’80s booty clappers like Maggotron and the 2 Live Crew, if not earlier. Does the ’70s disco-funk groovage of Miamians KC and the Sunshine Band count as booty bass music? They did pen the 1976 hit “(Shake, Shake,…