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You wouldn't guess it but we are living, albeit only musically, in a Golden Age. On the surface, I agree, things look pretty grim. First of all, there is the small matter of the imminent collapse of the recording industry, attributable to a combination of corporate incompetence and greed exacerbated by the arrival of MP3 and CD-R technologies.

On a local and more mundane level, the outward signs are equally unpromising. In the UK, pop is back with a vengeance, thanks to a Karaoke/Pop Idols mentality that has attained hitherto unimagined levels of banality and conformity. More worryingly, the all-devouring MTV and its offshoots have corrupted R&B and hip-hop to a distressing extent. Mainstream black music is in danger of being reduced to a cliched triumvirate of bling bling, soft porn and scowling faces.

Elsewhere, rock-guitar miserabilism is on the rise and whining, white-male petulance stalks the land. As to dance, its temporary pre-eminence is over. Each week brings news of the closure of a major club. Desperate promoters have resorted to "studenty" kitsch, including the abomination that is the school disco phenomenon. Finally, too much attitude, puerility and the ungrasped nettle of sexual harassment have tainted the once promising UK garage scene.

Given this unhappy list, you might, justifiably cite 2002 (the year when even the Queen acknowledged pop music's vital function within the dominant ideology) as the nadir of a once lively music culture.

The surface, however, is never where to look for musical delights. Happily, I spend most of my life close to the various post-Mod spaces that still look to soul, house and jazz for inspiration, and there the pickings have never been richer. True, neo-soul might have gotten a tad precious and narcissistic, while most of what qualifies as modern soul still struggles in the shadow of past glories. At most venues, mellow two-step and banging house have yet to be satisfactorily reconciled, but the actual basis of the scene -- danceable black music and its myriad offspring -- is as solid as ever.

Nowhere is this more the case than with the present crop of house releases. Whether in its gospel, soulful or jazzy guise, or in smooth, West Coast and deeper, techno-inflected styles there is technique, range and diversity as never before. Blasphemy though it is to even suggest it, I reckon house music actually sounds better now than it did in 1988.

One reason why this current creative plateau has not been much appreciated is that the people making the most interesting tunes are, for the most part, old hands at the game. The music is in its mature phase, not as revolutionary or surprising as it once seemed perhaps, but better produced and less scared to show its (greying?) roots than previously. My attitude to recent house is a bit like my take on post-war jazz -- I know the 1940s was the decade of real innovation but don't those '50s albums sound more satisfying?

The starting points for this phase of house were probably the 1997 Nu Yorican Soul project and the opening of Body and Soul in 1996. What these two projects achieved was a retrospective reunification of club and dance history. No longer was house and digitalism seen as a complete break with a past but as (significant) episodes in a continuum. Rave and trance became the aberrations, the true paths led surely and soulfully back to the Loft and beyond. Blaze, Francois K, Larry Heard, Moodymann, Ron Trent, Danny Krivit, Joe Claussell and their ilk are the people who mattered here. Of course they always did, but a new sense of purpose and place has invigorated their work to the point where in many instances their latest projects are almost definitive.

So if you want soulful, vocal house (soulful garage as it is termed in England), you will not find better than that collected on the recent Stereo Sushi 3 or the Universal Sounds of House sets. These showcase nights put on by Hed Kandi and Cleveland Anderson/Black Masses, two key UK "Soulboy House" outfits, respectively.

As for the tracks, new acts rub shoulders with club-land legends, in keeping with this past/present reconciliation. It is experience which tends to win the day though, whether in the shape of out-and-out gospel belters such as Su Su Bobien or Michelle Weeks or in more subdued fare such as the Monday Michiru/Mondo Grosso/Blaze magnum opus "Star Suite". Somewhere in between sit Bunny Sigler (remember him?), superb on the ultra-funky "Freak Like Me", and Jody Watley, whose Phil Asher remixed "Photograph" is the highlight of a long career. Both CDs are an essential insight into the gems that uptempo (but not mindless) rooms are currently enjoying.

America's Blaze and England's Phil Asher crop up frequently with regard to this new era of familiarity refreshed. Blaze have, with Spiritually Speaking, released not only their most powerful album yet but one of the few truly great single act full-length efforts. Buy it if the idea of Earth, Wind and Fire re-worked by the undying Shelter aesthetic even vaguely appeals. Asher, best known as the man behind the "broken beats" boom, still knows his jazz-funk and house and as mixer and compiler of La Onzieme Chapitre has delivered another un-miss-able package.

The silly French subtitle refers to the fact that this is the 11th issue of the seminal Jazz in the House series. That relaunch speaks volumes for the quantity of suitably jazzy and soulful material doing the rounds. Slip'n'Slide had transferred the series' mission (to chronicle the best floor-friendly, jazz-influenced house music from the US and Europe)to the successful Klubb Jazz sequence. Now they have (rightly) decided that both titles are needed to fully cover the glut of classy twelve inches that circulate unheeded by the mainstream.

So, Mondo Grosso are again featured (mixed rather than unmixed so it doesn't matter) and are joined by heavy-hitters such as Octave One, DJ Spinna, Peven Everett, DJ Gregory, Su-Pooka-Pooh, Nathan Haines and Blaze. Techno, jazz, house, soul -- all united under one banner. It all sounds absolutely contemporary yet contains more history and heritage than a National Trust brochure. Everett is the vocalist from Roy Davis' "Gabriel" and Octave One are better known as Detroit's finest techno outfit. Su-Paka-Pooh are Japanese but their contribution is the Art Ensemble of Chicago's "Theme De Yo-Yo". Haines is a stalwart of the West London jazz scene but the mix comes from Kenny Dope.

International, poly-ethnic, multi-generic -- it is the perfect album to use to convert those who still think dance music is one-dimensional.

The riskiest track is 3 Generations Walking's "Slavery Days", which once defined roots reggae in its original Burning Spear form. The pre-release single was my prize possession in the mid-'70s, so it is no easy thing for me to concede that that this new (Claudia Acuna sung) version is as good as it is different from its source. Less surprising, is to note that it emerges from Joe Claussell's Spiritual Life imprint, a retrospective two-CD set of the label's many treasures which has also recently hit the shops.

Claussell (with Danny Krivit and Francois K) makes up the unfairly gifted DJ team behind those Body and Soul Sunday sets. Each is acknowledged as a major force (past and present) in the field of dance. Each shares an informed eclecticism and an undying devotion to all that is positive in black music. Each also has a distinct musical identity. Claussell, of Puerto Rican heritage, is in my opinion a celebrant of the black diaspora without peer. His productions and his sets make a constantly adventurous journey from Africa to the New World, joining metaphorical and actual dots in a manner every bit as sophisticated as the efforts of such highbrow theorists as Stuart Hall or Paul Gilroy. Claussell has the advantage of being able to move the body as well as stimulate the mind.

One example from a selection that would survive if the whole dance and club world vanished will suffice as illustration of Claussell's genius. Jephte Guillaume's "The Prayer", though five years old at least, still sends shivers down my spine and brings together Haitian Africanisms with the most nuanced of House beats to create an experience unlike any other. There is a mystical depth to this tune that is little short of uncanny. That it has become a staple of events such as Southport is as hard to credit as the fact that Charles Mingus' "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" was regularly played to pilled-up Mods at Manchester's Twisted Wheel in days of yore. As Spiritual Life Music also features Claussell's re-mixes of Ten City classics and the criminally ignored Mateo and Matos, you know you need this in your collection.

If New York is the creative magnet for much of this poly-rhythmic, pan-generic wizardry, mention must be made of the fact that California, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, London, Paris and Scandinavia are all adding their own input, with suitable regional twists, to the fusion boom. Pausing briefly to note that over in California the much-maligned Naked outfit has just posted two contenders for album of the year (from Aquanote and Miguel Migs) and that Om is also in good voice of late, let us look briefly at what is happening in Montreal and Toronto.

Specifically, let me recommend Spot records and Blissom and Ashen -- the next big thing in nu-jazz (if I have any say in the matter). The Canadian dance underground has been a force to be reckoned with for some time (partly because of relocated mavericks such as Davis Jr., Axus and Nick Holder). A more technoid, downtempo jazz ethos has been carefully nurtured and Blissom and various collaborators have quietly been forging a path somewhere along leftfield jazz-house lines that has yet to reap the public plaudits it deserves. A bit too "aren't we clever" at times for my tastes, there are still at least four tracks on Mr. Tran Travels in Sound that, if Asher or Peterson were to pick up on them would make these Canadians the toast of the West London scene. Jazzy samples, percussive arrangements and a definite mischievous quirkiness render them tailor-made for UK cult status.

Staying in that jazz-inflected downtempo region, but not slowing down enough to be accused of lounging, another example of creative renewal comes in the welcome return to form of i records. Kevin Yost, that most enigmatic (apart from Moodymann) of deep housers has temporarily turned his back on his smoother side and resurrected his Hypnotic Progressions project. Now this is deep. So deep, in fact, it will prove impenetrable to many and may prove difficult for the more vocally oriented to absorb.

Yost's approach to deep house is close to classical etude or modernist abstract experiment. Atmosphere and introspection are the values striven for. Each track is called "Hypnotic Progression" and the description is apt. The interplay between repetition and modification make for a challenging and engaging journey. It could be House's own "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" although Stieglitz' "Equivalents" would capture the underlying calm more fittingly. A little too cerebral? Perhaps, but it is fascinating and rather addictive. Those who thought Yost was getting a little mushy will cheer and anyone who values one of Dance music's few genuine auteurs should get hold of a copy forthwith.

If you want a slightly less intense but rather more varied experience, stay with i but check out Stockholm Sessions. Self-confessed Abstract House, this mix wanders melodically around Deep and Nu-Jazz territory and mostly consists of work by Frederik Stark and Andreas Benders. Jazz-funk put through a techno blender with a mood that is alternatively lazy and a little more hard-edged, Stockholm Sessions (is the Dolphy allusion deliberate?) represents the purity and clean-lines of Northern Europe's version of house to perfection.i have, through Yost and Todd Edwards, always favored the more individualistic, not to say eccentric, talents within electronica.

Neither of these releases betrays that tendency. Both CDs are less indebted to the past than some of the other releases, indeed they are verging on the futuristic, but neither are they as arid and lacking in emotion as some seem to believe. The core values are as grounded in jazz and rhythm as the most blinkered funkster could wish.

Finally, we reach a DJ mixed set that covers almost all the ground referred to in the above paragraphs. It also takes us back to New York and Body and Soul, while giving enough nods to the UK not to ruin my vicarious proprietorship of the music. Danny Krivit has been prolific on the compiling and mixing front in the past 18 months. For NRK he has abandoned his usual history of music and penchant for '70s Loft and garage classics, to offer two CDs worth of deep, jazzy house that is so artfully put together it is impossible to separate old tracks from 2002 newcomers.

I would not willingly part with any album on this page but Expansions will get more plays from me than most. Familiar tunes (Block 16's Find an Oasis and 808 State's "Pacific State" have never sounded more potent, while the sequence that runs from Octave One's "Blackwater", through Peckham Royalty's "Minor Villain" and Frankie Valentine's "Scrap Iron Rebel" into Zion Lockwood's "Pure as P" is just about the nearest to post-digital, jazz-funk heaven I am ever likely to get. The participants come from two continents, a New York disco legend has found the common denominators and mixed them together with love and exquisite taste. If you want soul, jazz, techno, funkiness floor-friendliness and depth -- it's all here. Krivit is a walking history of Dance music and all of his knowledge and insight have produced the most fluent and enjoyable set in years.

Buy every one of these CDs. Then tell me the past was better. I was there. It was indeed great but, on this evidence, so is the present. Ignore the TV screens and the tabloids. Defy the pessimists and cynics. House is a feeling. Soul is still alive. The jazz vibe will mutate but never die. Claussell, Asher, Krivit, Yost, Blaze, Migs and all the others are on a roll. Do yourself a favor. Join them at dance's version of the "changing same". From the most extrovert vocal stormer to the most intimate after-hours, ambient groover, there is something for every palette ,no matter how demanding or refined. Ain't life grand?

Until next time
Keep it soulful
Maurice

If anyone with an interest in Soul Music or English Sub-Cultures wishes to contact me about this column, e-mail me at tildawn90@hotmail.com.

No need for a top ten from me after that but a DJ whose club-nights are redolent with many of the above attributes is Brighton's Paul Sutton. One of the more insightful, iconoclastic and individual figures on the modern soul scene, Paul has an ear for the freshest sounds while never forgetting where the music's original strengths come from. Here is some of what he has been spinning out over the past few months.