French House
French house (also known as French touch or filter house) is one of the most
successful styles of electronic dance music, having a great influence on various genres. It is characterized by the incorporation of disco samples from the late 1970s and early 1980s, layering of drum tracks, a striking bassline and especially the heavy use of filter and phaser effects, resulting in a very powerful sound.
Though coined earlier in 1987 by house music parties at Parisian club »The Palace« (featuring djs like David Guetta and Laurent Garnier), the term »French touch« became popular used by British music journalist Martin James reviewing Étienne de Crécy's first solo album »Super Discount« in 1996. Some months earlier, together with Philippe Zdar as duo Motorbass, de Crécy released »Pansoul« which is regarded as one of the genre’s first and most important albums.
French house was actually born in 1995 when the debut album »Boulevard« by Ludovic Navarre aka St Germain created quite some buzz in the British press. With its mix of acid jazz, nu jazz and deep house it was far from what is known now as French house but it paved the way for a whole range of French djs and producers like Air, Motorbass, Cassius, David Guetta, Bob Sinclar, Modjo and most notably Daft Punk . Their 1997 debut album »Homework« is not only one of the genre’s milestones but also the origin of the filter house subgenre which is characterized by an even more excessive use of filters and especially sidechain compression/limiting, resulting in an even more dynamic and rhythmically pumping sound.
Through numerous projects and their own labels Crydamoure and Roulé, Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo formed kind of a big family of djs and producers which soon became known as Daft Crew. With his project Stardust Thomas Bangalter in 1998 released the track »Music Sounds Better with You« which some regard as the climax and epitome of French House. But 2000 also saw two other highly successful genre milestones with »Lady (Hear Me Tonight)« by Modjo and »One More Time« by – once again – Daft Punk.
French (filter) house had a huge impact not only on the house genre itself but also on mainstream pop, as can be seen with Madonna’s 2005 album »Confessions on a Dance Floor«.
