Detroit Forward on the POW Best Albums of 2022

29. Theo Parrish – DJ-Kicks: Theo Parrish

In a year where pop superstars grafted onto the superficial signifiers of house music past, Theo Parrish captured the genre’s heartbeat on Detroit Forward. The legendary selector/producer was a teenage participant at the dawn of Chicago house, and he relocated to Detroit in the ‘90s as the style spread from the Great Lakes to the rest of the world, losing some of its soul to get-rich-quick interlopers along the way. In a 2013 interview with Crack Magazine, he said dance music “should be an honest reflection of the human condition. But there’s a tendency to make everything slick and pristine and take our human part out of it.“

Parrish’s contribution to the esteemed DJ-Kicks series is a corrective. The compilation of previously unreleased tracks from Detroit musicians is less a dance mix than an AND1 mixtape highlighting the city’s talent. Specter’s “The Upper Room” nods to classic house with ten minutes of staccato organ and kick drum. On “Moonlite,” keyboardist Ian Fink mutates the distinctive one-chord, three-bar phrase of a 1997 Parrish track along with two percussionists, recorded live at Fink’s Wednesday night residency at a Detroit winery. Meftah’s sampled drums on “Full” swing like mid-‘90s hip-hop and John C. brings a loping flow to match, boasting about his self-worth in one of the mix’s few raps. The disparate musicians and styles are all united in house’s utopian vision of loose limbs, shaking asses, and everlasting dopamine. Parrish’s compilation is proof that Black dance music is not bound to any synth patch, drum machine, or timeline, and it’s flourishing right now in Detroit.