Ron Trent

The veteran Chicago dance producer sets aside club conventions in favor of an ultra-smooth hybrid of house, disco, jazz, and new age. If house music was a human being, it would be in its late thirties and plumb in the season of mid-life crisis, which makes a certain musical maturity an inevitable development. That it should be Chicago producer Ron Trent who brings house music its pipe and slippers on What Do the Stars Say to You is either remarkable or predictable, depending on whether you’re more familiar with Trent as the firebrand who produced the spartan dance classic “Altered States” at the age of 14 or the co-founder of Prescription, a label renowned for its unfathomably unwrinkled deep house.

Chicago dance-music veteran Ron Trent creates deep house that can keep a dance floor jumping for hours while simultaneously maintaining an intoxicating tranquility. Since the early 90s, Trent has built a reputation for appealing both to house heads who treat Marshall Jefferson’s “Move Your Body” as a commandment and drone devotees who thrive on meditative, atmospheric thrumming. For his first full-length album in 11 years, What Do the Stars Say to You (Night Time Stories), he collaborated with musicians whose backgrounds span several genres but who all share Trent’s goal of making immersive mood music that’ll have you nodding your head without realizing it: they include Texas psych-rock phenoms Khruangbin, Italian ambient composer Gigi Masin, and the two surviving members of Brazilian fusion trio Azymuth (bassist-guitarist Alex Malheiros and percussionist Ivan Conti). Trent juggles several instruments—guitar, percussion, synth—while guiding the album through tropicalia, soul, smooth jazz, light funk, and more. The gentle poise of his creative direction produces a fluid, imaginative experience as rejuvenating as a trip to the sauna.

The first remix from Fort Romeau’s February 2022 album Beings of Light and Ghostly held nothing back. There is nothing more dangerous in dance music than Ron Trent when he’s inspired. He’s inspired now. The Chicago pioneer has released his share of epic remixes in the last...

Opportunities like Saturday night only come so often to our rainy corner of the Pacific Northwest. Stepping up to the decks at Kremwerk is house music legend Ron Trent. For his three-hour+ Seattle debut, Trent will preside over the club's dance floor as a guest of Alex Carrabba and Keenan Stevenson's West Coast house project, OFF99. Growing up in Chicago, Trent blasted onto the scene as a high schooler with 1990's "Altered States," a house classic that kicked off his three-decade-long career in electronic music. Just a few years later, Trent co-founded Prescription Records, which Resident Advisor said is "widely regarded as one of the most influential Deep House imprints of the period." In the years since, Trent has cemented himself on the forefront of the underground music scene, playing at international electronic institutions like Berghain while also hunkering down in his cool-ass studio back in Chicago. Trent's mixes pull from disco, soul, world, funk, and jazz music, all formulated into a sound that's transcendent and propels you to moooooove. I'm assured his Saturday night set at Kremwerk will take the crowd on a journey through time, sound, and soul. See you on the floor.

Cinthie, Ron Trent, Move D and Sally C are among the artists whose work appears on a huge new AVA. RECORDS compilation which is out now, marking ten years of the Berlin-based imprint. The sprawling 22-track album also features the likes of Will Saul, Andy Hart, Am Kinem, Jus-Ed, and...