Why 'naughty tech-house' is the greatest dance music sub-genre ever

Naughty tech-house is a feeling. It’s what screws your face up in mock disgust when a dangerous bassline belts out the system. It’s what makes you get another round of doubles in when you should have been ordering an Uber. It’s what reminds you how life-affirming this whole whirlwind of a culture can be. It’s the lubricant of the sesh and, undeniably, the greatest dance music sub-genre of all time.

No one listens to naughty tech-house on their own or, indeed, out of official sesh hours. That’s the beauty of it: it’s communal music made for DJs who rely on rude tracks to send dancefloors into a frothy frenzy and for afterparty heads who know that the key to a good crack-on is hours upon hours of certified musical sleaze. We all know you’re not going anywhere once you hear the warm, devilish embrace of Cuartero’s ‘Nosy Neighbours’.

So what defines this lascivious sound? Bass, and preposterous portions of it. Hints of melody, though nothing that’ll slide over the fine line into deep or prog-house. Tough, pacy percussion, designed to keep the mind awake and the body dancing. And beautiful repetition that’ll hypnotise you into spending hours, if not days, locked in glorious hedonism.

It’s a blueprint that transcends traditional dance music demarcation. All tribes arrive at naughty tech-house: the OG house heads who recognise it as a direct descendant of classics like Mr Fingers’ ‘The Juice’; the technorati who would never openly admit to loving its cheeky swagger; the bass music purists who are drawn to its garage-esque swing like moths to a flame; and the swathes of 20-something first timers turned on by this music that just feels so fucking good. Even seasoned cynics melt in the presence of contemporary naughty tech-house greats such as Berlin threesome ItaloJohnson, whose white label series is more mischievous than a spider monkey in a false moustache.

The sound, beloved of ravers in Ibiza, Barcelona and Birmingham, comes wrapped in a je ne sai quois more easily identified by sound than described in mere words. You won’t find ‘naughty tech-house’ listed as a category on Beatport or Juno, or ‘NTH’ scrawled on the sleeves at your local record shop. But you will find people lapping it up at Magna Carta, Do Not Sleep, Paradise and Elrow, scores of whom wake up the next day and take to Facebook in order to find the ID of tracks that have left their dishes blasted clean off. Listen to Enzo Siragusa’s ‘Desire’ or ‘Restless Nights’ by Schatraxx and you’ll find its amphetamine-propelled, funk-flecked essence.

Many sub-genres, such as deep tech, purple or donk, were born from certain clubs or collectives. Naughty tech-house, however, is a canon of tracks contributed to by artists from across the scene, all of whom share a singular mission: to cause as much trouble as possible.

There’s even been crossover success. It’s in the DNA of Maceo Plex’s breakout album ‘Life Index’ and forms the basis of Soul Clap’s infamous ‘Extravaganza’ edit. Another peak occurred when Franco Cinelli remixed Cassius’s ‘The Sound Of Violence’, which soundtracked a generation of afterparties and captured the sexuality and sleep deprivation of naughty tech-house forever. And then there’s this infamous sub-genre’s biggest hit: Jamie Jones’ remix of ‘Hungry For The Power’, which blasted from UK daytime radio in 2011 and had the entire populace caught, as one, in a moment that will never be forgotten.

Naughty tech-house isn’t a movement, it’s an atmosphere. It’s what happens when you distil three decades’ worth of dance music history into the present, the right here, right now, the “Are you up for it this weekend?” It’s the greatest sub-genre ever identified, because it makes you feel glad to be alive – time and time again.

Check out the official NTH playlist on Mixmag’s Spotify