“I’m basically into underground pop - the kind of cool house and tech-influenced pop that the likes of Art Department and Benoit & Sergio are making right now” Seth Troxler told Defected a few weeks back. “The kids like it, and there’s a lot of places you can take a sound like that.”

Not least onto some of clubland’s biggest online forums. The sound Troxler refers to has been the subject of feverish debate by a number of club-goers recently; many forced to re-assess the complicated yardsticks by which they judge and define modern dance music.

The paradoxical-sounding term ‘underground pop’ is by no means a definitive one; it remains largely in fact, the property of Troxler. But there is the grain of something there. Artists from (or linked to) the sprawling camps of Crosstown Rebels, Wolf + Lamb and Visionquest are playing with the basic building blocks of house and techno; they are overlaying flat four-to-the-floor with everything from light, frothy soul-funk influences and pop-hook vocals to frivolous 80s-style boogie-bass and super saccharine R&B samples. It’s tech meets Top Of The Pops. Almost.

The clubbing public is undecided. There are those who argue such music is fun, uplifting and social, firmly in line with house’s original unifying principles, and others who vigorously shake it off as two-dimensional, dumbed-down nonsense with little or no emotional impact, and a potentially corrosive effect on the wider dance scene’s cultural credibility.

Recently on one Resident Advisor forum thread, member Dusk1983 commented: “The answer is: girls… There is a Crosstown / Hot Creations / Wolf & Lamb [sic]  / Soul Clap / Troxler / Foss [Lee] / Jones [Jamie] / Art Department axis that have successfully turned a generation of women onto house music again… I honestly don’t think we’ve seen this kind of thing before in ‘credible’ and ‘underground’ dance music… It is girls that have turned these guys into popstars, which in turn is driving the direction of their music and (given their influence) the direction of house music in general.”

Girls galore with Jamie Jones - photo credit Nik Torrens

Earlier this month Hot Natured boys Foss and Jones released a new single Forward Motion via their Hot Creations imprint – the tune, with vocals from retro Italo-disco-popper Ali Love, mixes deep b-line house bounce with punchy rave stabs, soaring synths and the kind of camp, lust-fuelled, ridiculously hooky vocals that has, inevitably, had the purists running for cover (or ear plugs). Resident Advisor members have been questioning whether or not the quest for new, accessible beats has gone too far.

CBills428 suggests: “I think Lee Foss is making some great music right now. Call it what you will, 'feminine', pop, whatever. Yes most of his productions sample R&B and hip-hop from the eighties and nineties but he's helping make house music more accessible and he's putting his productions along side more classic material (nineties house, UK garage) in his mixes.”

But AND_RAY disagrees, saying “Catchy indeed but that is not always a good thing. In my humble opinion, this [Forward Motion] is a terrifying record...terrifying if this is where the 'trend' is going. Oh dear oh dear.” And even Hot Creations supporter sze20 concedes: “I’m a big fan of jj [Jamie Jones], lee foss and the fusion of house and old skool rnb but for me forward motion [sic] represents a fusion of house and contemporary (ie crap) rnb.”

Mullet Records founder Justin Winks, whose increasingly popular dance label and DJ-producer alter-ego Casio Social Club lives and breathes feel-good vocals and poppy panache thinks that the house and techno communities need to step back, re-boot and carefully re-assess these latest happenings within their scenes. They might, in turn, find themselves more conducive to cutting records like Forward Motion, Lee Foss’ February outing Your Turn Girl and Soul Clap’s Pop and R&B Edits a little slack.

“I think clubland went really boring a few years ago after the glut of vocal records in the 1990s” he argues. “It was a natural reaction. But in consequence there was too much tech and minimal house and all the feel good factor of dance music was stripped out. The groove was still there but nothing else; hedonism became a word for amazing studio engineering, or skill in using Pro Tools and Logic. People have gotten used to this culture and forgotten that dance music evolves and, in the bigger scheme of things, has regularly pulled on its earliest roots – disco, soul, funk. That’s why the whole ‘underground pop’ thing has been raising angry questions and eyelids.”

‘Underground Pop’ isn’t a term Winks much likes. For him ‘nu disco’ is a better, wider fit. “I don’t really like pigeon holes; particularly the use of ‘nu’ in front of something else. But then everyone uses these tags so I figure I should as well. Besides nu disco covers a whole ream of styles – your Wolf+Lambs, Faze Actions, nu-wave, synth-pop… - without putting anyone in a specific box; it can mean a whole bunch of different records. To me, a lot of these new guys fall into nu-disco; there are all doing something individual and different, and it’s totally positive and uplifting. Why not? Dance music should be about having fun.”

Winks, a DJ of nearly 25 years now, ran soulful techno imprint Void during the late 1990s but his ties to emotive electronica, soul, funk and early Detroit and Chicago have always remained strong. He turned his hand to music production in 2004, subsequently working with New York house legend Victor Simonelli, before establishing Casio Social Club and, in 2008, launching Mullet – a platform for new artists to push the same free-form, outrageously funky mantra as Casio.

Mullet, with countless digital releases under its belt and new, eagerly awaited material due this year from the likes of Drop Out Orchestra (whose back catalogue includes cosmic disco re-workings of Sade and Rick Astley) and hyped Russian synth-pop band Tesla Boy (a follow-up album to hit Mullet-released long-player Modern Thrills) is going from strength to strength; as are Winks’ DJ bookings.

“The house music coming through now makes such a lovely change” he reflects. “A lot of it is influenced by the better years of dance music, those uplifting tracks of the 1970s and 80s, and, let’s be honest, it seems like it’s attracting a lot of people to clubland for the first time, which is great.”

But the critics aren’t convinced that this new surge of vocal-based dance records is entirely uplifting. Back on Resident Advisor forum member ‘charlieboychik’ posts: “What bothers me about this recent wave of dance-pop is the melancholy of it all. It gets away from what house music is all about - partying with a smile on your face! Not moaning vocals and swaying and pouting with your head tilted back. It just doesn't have the hedonistic, hands-in-the-air vibe of true house music.”

Danish producer Trentemoller, whose intricate studio output regularly wallows in deep, electronic melancholia – ably demonstrated by acclaimed current album Into The Great Wide Yonder – has other, albeit mild concerns.

“I haven’t listened to much of this pop and nu-wave-influenced material, but Art Department I do know and whilst I really like what they’re doing, and how they’re trying different things with club music, some if it still feels too linear. The beats and grooves are cool but, personally, I want more of a surprise.”

Winks, in part, agrees: “There is a simple formula at work on many of these records – repetitive techy groove, clean breakdown, familiar sample teased in and out, back to the groove, and so on. But it works and makes people smile… and not just the younger generations coming through. I’m a big fan of Wolf+Lamb and Crosstown Rebels; their stuff isn’t as straight-laced as the tech-house that came before it, and these guys do mix their releases up anyway. We’re in danger, I fear, of the ‘underground pop’ pigeon-hole sticking. It doesn’t help.”

No-one is certain where house and techno go from here but as contentious tracks like Forward Motion testify they are evolving faster than ever, and with the kind of momentum that is difficult to resist or ignore. Time perhaps to face the music and dance....

Words: Ben Lovett