John Summit’s second album, CTRL ESCAPE, charts his journey from cubicle to major stage, whereas paying homage to his Chicago roots.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
In lower than 5 years, John Summit went from making beats in his dad and mom’ basement to being one of the vital well-known DJs in dance music right now.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WHERE YOU ARE”)
HAYLA: (Singing) I get this feelin’ I wanna be the place you might be.
CHANG: However earlier than his meteoric rise, he was an accountant in Chicago.
JOHN SUMMIT: Oh, no, I sort of noticed my flash – life flash earlier than my eyes once I was doing accounting after the companion I used to be working with instructed me – he is like, yeah, I bear in mind once I was you simply yesterday. Then I blinked, and right here I’m now, and I am like, you are in your 60s, man. Like, you do not even bear in mind the final 40 years of your life?
CHANG: John Summit’s newest album, “CTRL ESCAPE,” tells the story of his journey. NPR’s Kai McNamee studies.
SUMMIT: I am at all times on the street. I imply, it is nonstop, however that is how I prefer it.
KAI MCNAMEE, BYLINE: Authorized title John Schuster, his whirlwind ascent was the inspiration for his first album, “Consolation In Chaos.” His new album goes past the sound he is develop into greatest identified for – a subgenre of dance music known as tech home.
SUMMIT: This latest album is known as “CTRL ESCAPE,” and, , its sort of total theme is, like, once I broke out of the 9-to-5 world. It is multi-genre. I am not, , pigeonholed into a particular sound.
MCNAMEE: The album options components of home, lure, rock, drum and bass – tracks, he says, that push his inventive boundaries.
SUMMIT: I imply, instance is “WITH ME” with Julia Wolf.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN SUMMIT AND JULIA WOLF SONG, “WITH ME”)
SUMMIT: You possibly can’t actually say what style it’s. Like, I do not know what to name it. It is like 144 BPM, home observe. It is – like, has trance components. After which you could have her vocal coming from this, like, indie rock sort of emo world, the place her – she’s by no means been on a dance document earlier than, too. So it is like, all these completely different components that should not be collectively, however then it by some means works.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WITH ME”)
JULIA WOLF: (Singing) You keep up all night time.
And it was simply tremendous collaborative and, I do not know, sort of got here collectively fairly simply.
MCNAMEE: Singer and songwriter Julia Wolf.
WOLF: John was, like, actually adamant about bringing each of our worlds collectively. Like, he very a lot needed our enter on it and, like, our, , path, I assume.
MCNAMEE: To grasp Summit’s world, it’s important to return to his hometown. Summit grew up in Naperville, a suburb west of Chicago, and Chicago is the birthplace of home music. His sound owes lots to the town’s legends. Syncopated piano chords drive the observe “DON’T BELIEVE IT,” that includes Abby Eager.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DON’T BELIEVE IT”)
ABBY KEEN: (Singing) Do not imagine it. Do not imagine it. Day and night time, do not imagine it (ph).
MCNAMEE: And people chords evoke data produced by pioneers of the style, like Marshall Jefferson and Paul Johnson.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DON’T BELIEVE IT”)
KEEN: (Vocalizing).
MCNAMEE: Summit first began making music in school. And when he graduated and acquired that job as an accountant, he spent his nights DJing.
JOHN CURLEY: What I like about him is he got here from the identical place lots of us did. He was only a child who actually, actually needed to be part of it.
MCNAMEE: John Curley has been a DJ in Chicago for the reason that late ’80s. He runs a number of venues there and booked Summit early in his profession.
CURLEY: You recognize, he would come as much as the DJ sales space and share his tracks and say, hey, take heed to this.
MCNAMEE: Curley hears the town’s influences all through Summit’s music. He factors to the 2022 tune known as “In Chicago.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “IN CHICAGO”)
SUMMIT: And I am in Chicago. Focus.
MCNAMEE: Marguerite Harrold chronicled the historical past of the style in her e-book “Chicago Home Music: Tradition And Group.”
MARGUERITE HARROLD: After I hear this tune, I hear old-school home influences. I hear Jesse Saunders and Vince Lawrence. I hear Marshall Jefferson. I hear J.M. Silk. I hear…
MCNAMEE: Harrold grew up going to the town’s golf equipment and underground events within the ’80s and ’90s.
HARROLD: Many of the locations have been bare-bones, proper? So you will be in a room that is sort of like a black field, and there is a strobe gentle, and it is simply bass. Like, the place the place is since you hear the bass two blocks away, and also you simply really feel that (imitating bass thumping) – , that thump.
(SOUNDBITE OF JESSE SAUNDERS SONG, “ON AND ON”)
HARROLD: It began with Black homosexual individuals discovering and making areas of their very own in order that they might collect and never be harassed or discriminated towards. So that you stroll within the door, irrespective of who you might be, individuals settle for you.
MCNAMEE: That generosity is one thing Summit is grateful for. And whilst his sound evolves, he nonetheless thinks about the place it began.
SUMMIT: You guys at all times respect your origins, and I might not be right here with out that. I feel, like something, , it is like whenever you graduate highschool, then you definately go off to varsity and also you go off this, you at all times know the place your roots are, and also you at all times acquired to remain true to it in a way.
MCNAMEE: With “CTRL ESCAPE,” Summit nods to the previous whereas making his personal mark in dance music historical past. Kai McNamee, NPR Information.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SHADES OF BLUE”)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) Hear my voice torn in two.
JULIA CHURCH: (Singing) Torn in two.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) Seems like ceaselessly.
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