UK hard house


UK hard house or simply hard house is a style of electronic dance music music that emerged in the 1990s and is synonymous with its association to Trade club and the associated DJs there that created the style. It often features a speedy tempo, offbeat bass stabs, hoovers, horns and crowd cheering samples. It usually contains a break in the middle of the track without drum. UK hard house often uses a long and sharp string note to create suspense. Most of the time, the drops are introduced by a drum roll.

Hard house clubbing brands

Certain brands have reached legendary status with die-hard hard house fans, such as Birmingham based Sundissential and its Leeds counterpart Sundissential North. Clubbers are known to travel cross-country to some parties. The venues associated with certain brands are almost the stuff of legend themselves and are remembered fondly and given almost cult status by veteran ravers. For example:

The Tidy Boys

The Tidy brand, was formed in 1994 by Amadeus Mozart and Andy Pickles. The brand is known for putting on large scale events, most notably The Tidy Weekenders. The brand struggled in the late 2000's to keep going financially with dwindling sales and poor attendance figures to events. During the mid 2010's however the brand has had a huge resurgence and revitalised the UK hard house scene putting on huge events across the UK has been possible due to the fans being able to reconnect with the brand through the Tidy Boys official Facebook page and growing social media presence.
Tidy are known for their sell-out club nights and one-off events such as TDV20 - a 20-year memorial event of the death of Tony De Vit - one of the original pioneers of hard house. Also known for hosting "The Tidy Weekender"; three-day parties which were held from Friday to Sunday at Pontins resorts in Prestatyn, Camber Sands and Southport.
Notable Recent Events:
Launched in 2000, Storm regularly attracted up to 2000 clubbers in its heyday, and people came from as far as Bournemouth, Edinburgh and Belfast. The remoteness of Coalville made the venue tricky to get to, as there were no buses there which run on a Sunday and no local train station, meaning that the majority of clubbers who made it to Storm each week were usually die-hard ravers and for this reason, the brand and the venue had a cult following and very quickly reached legendary status amongst hard house fans.

[Sundissential] and Sundissential North

Originally held at Pulse in Birmingham, the sheer popularity of the weekly Midlands-based, self-styled "Most Outrageous Club in the World" saw it quickly set up its second base in Leeds – firstly, at Club Uropa from 1998 till 2000 and then Evolution from 2000 till 2005. Known for its cult following by fans who would wear elaborate and often home-made outfits, largely made from red and yellow fluff. Several controversial and tragic incidents kept Sundissential firmly at the forefront of the hard house scene, with several deaths of clubbers, as well as the antics of the promoter, Paul Madden a.k.a. "Madders" which created gossip amongst fans online on Leeds based clubbing forums, biscuitmonsters.com and 4clubbers.net and kept the brand firmly in the spotlight until the doors closed in 2005. In 2016, the brand was relaunched under new management and began putting on events again in Leeds, at the Mint Club and at Church.

Fish! and Superfish!

From the mid-1990s to early 2000s, club nights included Fish!, Superfish!, and Warriors at Turnmills.
Hard house and hard NRG artists and DJs at these venues included Captain Tinrib, D.F.Q., Ben Javlin, Steve Thomas, Steve Hill, Rubec, Simon Eve, Pete Wardman, Dave Randall, Johnnie "RR" Fierce, Karim, Chris "Drum Head" Edwards, and Weirdo.
Other venues were the Soundshaft nightclub and The Fridge in Brixton.

Notable hard house record labels and label managers

Pumping house

Pumping house is an intermediate term for early scouse house developments, popular Russia and Spain in the late 1990s to early 2000s. It is also used as an interchangeable term for UK hard house in these countries. The sound is often associated with bamboo-bass, invented by the Dutch duo Klubbheads in 1997.

Scouse house

Scouse house , also known as UK bounce, donk, or more recently as hard bounce, is a style of UK hard house which first emerged around 1999. Unlike other hard house genres, it features an upbeat, energetic sound and heavily focuses on the 'pipe' sample as an offbeat bassline, which usually represents a 'donk' sound. In recent years, hard bounce has come to refer as style far less uplifting trance orientated than the original Scouse house genre, which also utilizes the same sample but takes a slightly more commercial approach.

Hardbass

Hardbass is a development of scouse house, originated in Russia in the early 2000s.

Hard dance

Hard dance is a cross-over genre between hard house, Eurodance and hard trance, but the term 'hard dance' is often used in reference to hardstyle. The term began life as an umbrella term to denote several styles of hard music, namely hard house, hard trance and hardstyle.

Confusion

Hard house is similar to, but distinct from hardstyle. Confusion can sometimes arise as some club nights and events will play both hardstyle and hard house. This may be because hardstyle is quite well known across western Europe, whereas hard house has only ever had a limited audience outside of the UK, so there is more new music being released in the hardstyle scene.