encer kincy was giant in chicagos house music revival - part of the second wave of younger djs and producers that took the music of the early 1980s, rubbed it up and dropped it in places like 500 west cermak, medusa’s and the vault. a lot of people who are now superstars of the scene - mark farina, sneak, derrick carter, and dozens of others - were a part of that movement, too. spencer released a number of tracks on relief, planet e, cajual, peace frog - labels representing the classics of that era - and he usually recorded under the name gemini. as a dj, he operated in his own space - i’m sure he could play for a room, and sometimes did, but the unrestrained madness of a spencer kincy dj set had to be heard over several hours to appreciate. he could blend a sleazy disco track into hard acid, downtempo into a punishing armani track, jazz into detroit techno and so on. it wasn’t technically brilliant or tricky, but the selection was exquisite. a number of figures from his era still list him as an influence. his productions, viewed as a whole, are so much like his sets: going softer than many dared to go, and going much harder than just about any dared to go. simple jack tracks! respected by the standards of the industry of the time, and you certainly couldn’t go anywhere in chicago without hearing derrick, sneak, mark, lego, gene, jevon, diz, johnny or the other djs beating them. and so many of them have a timelessness - a little piece of eternity stuck like some bit of wax between the grooves
