Circuit House?

“Globally its a unique way for a track to be upbeat, up tempo and full of vocals. There will be styles closer to tribal, tech and tech house because house music itself has a huge spectrum of sub genres and it’s almost impossible to classify a track precisely without having an understanding of many other music styles. Ah and yes it’s not only for gay people I’ve noticed, someone was smart enough to make a gay event with the name circuit,” said Ale.

Is Ale right that it isn’t all gay? It seems circuit may have first been bandied around gay friendly circles in New York in the 1980’s, but was perhaps not exclusively gay. I mean we’ve all heard about the “festival circuit” meaning a route of multiple music festivals. But in 2008, Matinee Group did something remarkable when they swapped those words around to create “Circuit Festival” and invited international gay circuit parties to participate – gay ones. This coalescing of gay circuit parties into a circuit festival was a game changer, and definitely cemented circuit into the global gay lexicon.

But circuit house isn’t simply the music played at a circuit party. It has a recognisable sound. It’s often weaved with hefty synthesised percussion, lashings of diva vocals and a strong commercial flavour. It’s a style that is distinctly gay, which is why circuit stalwart, DJ Steven Redant just calls it “OUR music”.