Missing's New Track Might Spark a Diva House Revival

Perhaps as an antidote to EDM's over-the-top pop ambitions, the past few years have seen a deficit in memorable vocals in underground house and techno. Artists as influential as Radio Slave and Erick Morillo have both recently bemoaned the state of things, with the former claiming, "People don't want to seem to make hits, it seems, because it's not cool," while the latter explains, "A vocal hardly exists in the music I'm playing, in the underground." Can't we all just sing along?

Surprisingly, the solution might come from '90s jungle star Sam Gordon (aka Missing) who recently reactivated his studio and launched a new label, Urban Habitat Recordings, to deliver open-format dance music to the diva-deprived house nation. "4 Karma" is the sort of radio-friendly house jam that would have dominated Club MTV 20 years ago, with a full-throated delivery by Cinematic Orchestra vocalist Heidi Vogel who delivers a powerful hook that might drag the current deep house doddlers back to an era when soulful house could raise the roof and ratchet up top 10 hits. Listen here.