Hooj Choons - Music Style

Music Style

Hooj Choons released many records with tendencies towards the new progressive house trend of the early 1990s, including "Free Your Mind" by Spacebaby, an alter ego of Matt Darey, who would later be featured on many Hooj releases. The label originally released the classic JX hit "Son of a Gun" which would be licensed out to FFRR and subsequently hit the UK Top 10 Singles chart in 1995. Other early tracks which crossed over to the UK Singles Chart included "Always" by Tin Tin Out, the synth-driven anthem "Train of Thought" by Escrima, and "I Lift My Cup" by Gloworm. Also during this period, the label continued to release underground tracks including "This Love" by Red Sun, Hyperlogic's U2-sampled "Only Me" and a few tracks produced by Dutch DJ Patrick Prins including "Indica" as Movin' Melodies and "Bits and Pieces" as Artemesia. The label's association with the band Faithless continued when member Sister Bliss released the track "Can't Get A Man, Can't Get A Job (Life's a Bitch)" on Hooj Choons in 1995.

The label's 50th release occurred in 1997 and was the progressive sound of "The Calling" by Solar Stone. However, the magnitude of "The Calling" was overshadowed by Energy 52's "Cafe del Mar", originally recorded in 1993, first issued by Hooj in 1997, and then remixed again in both 1998 and 2002. "Cafe del Mar" has gone on to become a classic trance anthem and a big influence of the trance sound of the era. This was cemented during April 2011 when the song was voted number one by BBC Radio 1 listeners in Pete Tong's definitive Top 20 Dance Tracks of the last 20 years.

During the peak of popularity between 1997 and 1999, Hooj released various singles which were linked to the fledgling trance sound and many of them became massive club hits, these included; "The Twister" by Viper which heavily sampled Nina Simone's "Feeling Good"; "Greece 2000" by Three Drives, "The Body Shine EP" by Billy Hendrix; "Invisible" by Tilt which hit the UK Top 20, and the progressive track "Stage One" by Space Manoeuvres. In 1998, a Solar Stone EP called "Impressions" featured singer-turned-actress Kym Marsh providing vocals on one of its tracks entitled "Day by Day". Many of these tracks were popularised by DJ's such as Paul Oakenfold and Seb Fontaine who included many Hooj Choons in their sets,with Oakenfold regularly championing the V-One mix of the seminal trance track "Seven Cities", also recorded by Solar Stone. This, along with Energy 52's "Cafe del Mar", are arguably the most well known tracks released on the Hooj Choons label.

Around the time of the 90th release in 2000, Hooj's sound began to change again - this time to a housier, more minimal vibe. A few earlier underground tracks were remixed to mark the new direction of the label, including Lustral's "Everytime" and Lost Tribe's "Gamemaster" while new releases were Killahurtz's "West on 27th" and Pete Lazonby's "Sacred Cycles". Other notable later releases between 2001 and 2003 include "Turquoise" by Circulation, 16B's "Escape (Driving to Heaven)", Flash Brothers' "Hazy March" and Drunken Monkey's "Gratification".

Besides singles, Hooj Choons also released EP's and artist albums from Salt Tank, L.S.G. (Oliver Lieb) and 16B. Additionally, they also issued several compilations, appearing in both un-mixed and mixed formats. The mixed compilations were usually courtesy of Red Jerry, though both Tom Middleton (as Cosmos) and James Zabiela lent their mixing abilities to Hooj compilations as well. The compilations featured Hooj records prominently, especially in the "Some of These Were Hooj" and "Deeper Shades of Hooj" series, although some tracks were licensed from other labels.

Several sub-labels such as Top Banana Recordings, Prolekult, Airtight and Lost Language were also launched and these sub-labels were usually used for releasing less mainstream music and more pet projects and were never commercially successful.