About 15 years ago, a truly wonderful deep techno record came out of the city of Detroit on the Surveillance Recordings label with a strange catalog number under the artist name DFA. This was during the time that there was the label releasing indie dance under the name DFA, as well as soulful NYC house…

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Another year, another list of amazing music that no other media source will talk about. If you want to keep getting spoon fed a bunch of bullshit music, from a bunch of bullshit “artists”, you know where to find that. I can never get tired of putting these year end pieces out simply because I…

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The man Jay Simon has long been a favorite of ISM. He is one of those cats who likes to dig deep and find music that speaks to him, regardless of genre, whether it is old or new. As readers will know, he has been successful at this both as a DJ and as a…

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CGI Records out of Atlanta has been responsible for some of the biggest dancefloor killers in my deejay sets over the last year or so. Jams by C Powers (“Phoenix Down”) and Jerome (“5”) have been especially lethal. The newest one that is smashing for me has just come out on vinyl and it is…

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Metro Area’s popularity peaked with the release of their album all the way back in 2002, but both members have continued on making excellent music together and separately ever since. Darshan Jesrani‘s output has not received the accolades that Morgan Geist’s has, but that has never been due to lack of quality. Using disco as…

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One of my favorite tracks of the year so far is the title track from Linkwood’s album Expressions. I’ve actually had the album since late last year, and had it come out in 2014 it would have been near the top of my list for that year. Now that I’ve had time to really digest…

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Another one of the big jams from earlier in 2015, Omar-S’ “I Wanna Know” remains one of the most potent killers in my record bag even after so many months of hammering it. The vocals by James Garcia combined with the slightly cheesy synths give this a similar vibe to early Chicago house or lo-fi…

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Morgan Geist’s newest project The Galleria is a throwback to an older sound. Unlike Metro Area’s boogie and Italo, or Storm Queen’s classic house, The Galleria mines the far less critically popular genre of Freestyle. In my Pittsburgh crew, Freestyle has never really gone away. We still play shit like Alisha, Lisa Lisa, Expose, Debbie…

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Continuing on with talking about some of my favorite records of 2015 so far, Louie Vega has probably had one of his best years in a hot minute. He has dropped no fewer than three absolute anthems already, and with a full album on it’s way that sounds dope from clips, there’s a possibility of…

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About a year ago, I became a columnist for Attack Magazine. It has been fun writing opinion columns and providing analysis to a very wide audience that stretches beyond the confines of the genres I participate in. When Attack approached me about doing this, their primary concern was that the column lead discussion as opposed…

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One of the things that motivated me to restart ISM was the lack of almost any press coverage of what have been for me (and a lot of DJs I know) some of the biggest tracks of the year. I’d rather start going down that list now than wait till the year’s end. This one…

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Summertime is always inspiring to me as a deejay. I lean towards more melodic and beautiful music which lends itself to sunny days and warm nights. It’s always refreshing to find one of those epic and uplifting house/techno crossover jams that will smash a dancefloor every time. So far this summer, none has done it…

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For most of the past year and a half since we announced the end of this blog, I assumed the next post I would make here would be a eulogy. The fact that I probably wasn’t gonna do as good a job as Bernhard did might have added to the ass dragging. So after the…

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I know, I know. ISM is supposed to be dead now. Well, I didn’t know where else would be a good place to put this, so it’s going here. Tough titty if you don’t like it. When I look at the 2014 “Best Of” lists and the other year end round-ups from various writers, it…

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2013 was a busy year for me and my Pittsburgh Track Authority homies, Preslav and Adam. Each year since we started working together, we have tried to exceed the previous year’s production. This is what we accomplished this year: 6 PTA EPs Strenf EP – Work Them Records Pittsburgh Track Authority Edits Vol. 1 –…

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I’ve been doing some form of year-end lists for a while now. The approach I take is always the same, and it is based on nothing other than music I loved and loved to play during that year. I don’t care about whether a record is rare and worth a lot of money, or easily…

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As our newest writer Joseph Hallam discussed in his first post here on infinitestatemachine, the big trend in house music right now is knocking off old 90s New York and New Jersey house music. Last year, instead of the Juno “New Releases” page sounding like Kerri Chandler ripoffs, it was all Larry Heard wannabes. It…

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TR One have been up to some serious shit. Their track “Living In, Now” from last year is a total banger that doesn’t seem to have gotten anywhere near the amount of love it should have. Of course everyone knows about “Drum Dance”, also from last year and another total jam. And they have a…

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It may be hard to believe, but here I am making a post on my blog yet again 😉 2012 was a pretty crazy year for music in my opinion. It always seemed that there were far more cool records than I had money to purchase, so that seems to scream GOOD YEAR to me….

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Amir Alexander has been banging out tracks for a wide variety of underground labels: Hakim Murphy’s Machining Dreams, Vanguard Sound, Spider and Lola’s Plan B Recordings, and now the debut release on the new label Argot out of Chicago called “Gutter Flex”. “Gutter Flex” lives up to its name, with grimy beats and basslines aplenty….

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