In the early 1980s, Chicago house music made its little revolution in local nightclubs, carried by Frankie Knuckles and Ron Trent. Some 500 km to the east, in Detroit, Theo Parrish’s hometown, techno emerged. When the producer began his career in the mid-1990s, both genres had time to develop. He appropriated them and intertwined house and jazz instrumentation – the warmth infused into deep house – supported by imposing rhythmic structures. Detroit house, of which Parrish is one of the pioneers, is the meeting between the emotion of soul and the unfiltered energy of techno. While keeping his signature, the American producer renews himself and continues to explore the stylistic limits; Wuddaji is a very good example of this. The nine tracks look like sound experiments, sometimes revealing the instrumentation in its simplest form, as with “Angry Purple Birds”. “Radar Detector” questions compositional chance, the title track tackles improvisation, and “Hennyweed Buckdance” steps into Latino territory. For those who are used to dancefloors, it may take more than one listen to be convinced by the proposal, which remains nevertheless accessible and, above all, of very good quality.
