Todd Terry – House Masters

Essential inventory of house music godfather...

Three discs, 35 tracks, three years in the making (!) …alright, that’s enough flimflam. Actually it’s up to you as to how you remember Todd Terry the most. His ubiquitous mix of Everything But the Girl’s ‘Missing’ is inevitably the ‘House Masters’ starting point, its paleness well prepared for today’s house channels. As a hip-house higher power, the Jungle Brothers’ ‘I’ll House You’ is the stuff of legend, leading to two more rap 4x4s down the order and also later resumed as Royal House’s ‘Can You Party’. The infectiousness of his best known diva-led beats, ‘Something Going On’ and ‘Keep on Jumping’ both featuring Jocelyn Brown and Martha Wish, further hold down disc one.

There’s the Guinness-flavoured ‘Babarabatiri’ as the Gypsymen, the unmistakable hardcore chords of Black Riot’s ‘A Day in the Life’, and then all the other acid, rave, gospel, tribal, jacking, Latin, heads down, hands in the air, nuanced, balls to the wall, freshly flavoured, sample-and-drum-machine beatage, under a legion of aliases. Guaranteed no drum & bass from his ‘Revolutions’ era, but some of the electro is fantastic. ‘Alright Alright’ and ‘Dum Dum Cry’ take Terry back as a Masters at Work temp, just beginning to take crown measurements out of the ‘80s melting pot.

CLS’ ‘Can You Feel It’, probably best known for being klaxon-tastic, is contentiously overlooked in favour of the still very decent Music House mix. No room either for his mix of The Corrs’ ‘Dreams’, essentially the twin to ‘Missing’, or Shannon’s ‘It’s Over Love’, one of his five UK top 20 entries.

Other worthy picks – Tara McDonald’s ‘Play On’ puts a shift in. ‘Bango’ remains an addictive ‘80s oddity. Dred Stock’s ‘Pump’ and Terry’s ‘Put Your Hands Together’ will bug the hell out of you. An absolute history of house: fashions come and go, but after four decades, what’s never in doubt is that a plain Tee will always do.

9/10

Words: Matt Oliver

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