The story behind the most misunderstood genre in dance music. For well over a decade, tech house was commonly assumed to be a byword for uninspired, cookie-cutter dance music. Combining techno's outer-space sensibility with the swung grooves of house, tech house became largely associated with big room commercial clubs, and the term was often casually used as a pejorative to describe any mid-tempo dance music thought to be in bad taste. But in recent years, that's started to change. A new generation of DJs have been rediscovering the '90s productions that initially defined the tech house sound, tracks that are a million miles away from what the style transformed into as the 2000s progressed. Many modern listeners wouldn't think to associate these timeless tracks with what tech house became, which begs the question: what happened? What was tech house in the first place? Where did it come from? Why did it change? And why is it back? In this video essay, the DJs and producers who built the culture, watched it decay and reemerge, set the record straight. Narrator: Moxie Writer: Ray Philp Editor: Sophie Misrahi Dubbing Mixer: Guy Clarke Motion Graphics: Lawrie Miller Music Consultant: Dave Mothersole Archive Footage/Images: Dafina Krstevska Richards / dy-na-mix  One2 Watch Media Kappa FuturFestival Mark Anthony Tarling Mile Staniskovski Lucianocadenza Twistedbobby Boing Poum Tchak! DJ Mag Nicole Moudaber Miami Music Week Conkermon Joe Dawson Bruw69 Maria Harlow Mickysheffield Tomorrowland Get Physical Music Auroom Record Label Sunwaves Festival PIRATE.COM Boiler Room Music in order of appearance: O.H.M. - Oceanic (Original Mix) [Defective Records] 1995 Housey Doingz - Gobstopper [Wiggle Classics] 1996 E-Dancer - World of Deep [Play It Again Sam] 1998 Pure Science - Say It [Pure Science Communications] 1999 A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray [Warlock Records] 1988 LFO - LFO [Warp Records] 1990 Baby D - Let me be your Fantasy [Production House] 1992 Leviticus - Burial [Philly Blunt Records] 1994 Goldie - Innercity Life [FFRR] 1994 Loco Dice - Definition (Nic Fanciulli Remix) 2010 M.A.N.D.Y. vs Booka Shade - Body Language [Get Physical Music] 2005 Two Right Wrongans - System Error (Original Mix) [Neotropiq] 2018 Asad Rizvi - Dual (Bushwacka! Remix) [Reverberations] 2005