VA - Ron Trent Presents Prescription: Word, Sound & Power (2017) Lossless

Deep house music’s most eloquent operators pull together 24 sublime examples of their timeless, widely influential oeuvre c. 1993-1997 in Prescription: Word, Sound, Power, dispensed by the kings at Rush Hour.

Hailing from the Windy City and with both feet firmly planted in Chicago’s club scene since the ‘80s, Prescription came to define house music’s transition from raw, “tracky” minimalism to a more sophisticated, layered and jazz-skooled sound with a seminal run of two dozen, now sought-after releases during its mid ‘90s golden phase - many of which are included in this very necessary box.

Consolidating house music’s Black Atlantic roots in a sensual, psychedelic way unprecedented by its peers, this era of Prescription output set the template for deep house at its most esoteric and enigmatic. Adapting the experimental recording techniques of classic dub and jazz to house music’s rolling grooves, they created an open yet cryptic template woven with vocal samples used as conscious, symbolic reference in a way which elevated the fidelity of the artform to degrees which have rarely been bettered.

Where Virgo Four and Larry Heard laid house’s deepest foundations, it was Prescription’s Ron Trent and Chez Damier, and their pals, who built those foundations into the deep house’s classic landmarks such as the body-melting Morning Factory - if you haven’t heard this at 5am on a good system and under the influence, you haven’t lived! - or the sublime, rugged tension of Ron & Chez D’s Don’t Try It and their skipping arrow Space Riddims, and especially their vocal works such as Ani’s Love Is The Message, or Noni’s Antony-esque grip on the delectable Be My.

If we’ve any gripes, they’ve missed a trick by omitting Ron N Chez’s inimitable dubs to focus almost exclusive on main or vocal mixes, but here’s hoping they’re saving that one for a rainy day in the future. But we’re not complaining; this is an invaluable document of the reasons why so many people have fallen head over heels for house music since the early ‘90s, as much as a reminder of what’s missing, or has become lost ion translation with subsequent generations.