Kerri Chandler

The Jersey sound, between gospel and the booth

The deep house from New Jersey was recognized for its gospel, soul, and jazz influences long before the international circuit gave it a name. Kerri Chandler grew up in East Orange with a DJ father, Joseph Chandler, and a family of musicians: by thirteen, he was already DJing at the Rally Racquet Club, and while still a teenager, he held residencies at Newark's Club Zanzibar and Club America, where Tony Humphries defined the East Coast garage sound. That scene, raw and with gospel roots, can still be heard in his chords and in sets that can last six hours or more.

Super Lover, Madhouse, and the Kaoz family

In the early nineties, Atlantic released Super Lover / Get It Off, the first shot in a catalog of over a hundred records. Tracks and remixes like Rain, I Feel It, and You Are In My System became deep house standards. In 1992, he founded Madhouse Records alongside Mel Medalie, a soulful label that signed Roy Ayers and Dennis Ferrer, which closed in 2023, with its catalog moving to Kaoz Theory. In 1998, he created Sfere with Ferrer; in 2012, he launched Madtech for new generations; by the middle of that decade, Kaoz Theory brought together Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler, Satoshi Tomiie, and The Martinez Brothers. Albums like Hemisphere (1996), Trionisphere (2003), and Computer Games (2008), the compilation 25 Years of Madhouse (2018), and mixes like Watergate 15 (2014) and DJ-Kicks (2017) trace three decades of production.

Tape, Atmos, and the club as a studio

Chandler is a multi-instrumentalist and has brought open-reel tape machines to clubs and Boiler Room, including a tape session in New York. His residency at Circoloco (DC10, Ibiza) and dates at Printworks or Ministry of Sound made him an ambassador of the New Jersey garage sound in Europe; in 2022, he brought tape and holograms to Camden's Roundhouse. That same year, he released Spaces and Places, twenty-four tracks recorded in as many dance floors around the world, with Dolby Atmos spatial audio. DJ Mag awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. Today, he continues to tour internationally and runs Kaoz Theory as A&R and as a DJ: warm house, meticulous with sound, and designed to bring the dance floor together.