Bryan Lam, aka DJ ShortRound, Shepherd Express readers vote for best Club DJ in the 2007 Best of Milwaukee is featured in the Cobalt Garage this month. In a colorful spread, Cobalt Garage features DJ ShortRound, the Shepherd Express, and Milwaukee in a very positive light in front of a national readership.

The perpetual flux of underground dance music has caused the party to continually change. The scene finds a way to reinvent itself every couple of years, proving to the veterans and uninitiated alike that this so-called simple music might not be so simple after all. Who better represents such a free-form, sample-heavy state of mind than U.K. electronic music phenom Dave Taylor? More commonly known as the driving force behind the genre-defying production hype machine Switch, Taylor has redefined the rules for producers who once abided by the conventionalities of the game . . .

John Larner earned his reputation in the 1990s under the guise of Cyberjive. More than a decade later, the multifaceted house DJ/producer says he still can’t shake his past. “Nearly every show, someone wants to hear tracks from the rave days,” says Larner, who now sets up shop in Indianapolis. “Back in the day I played a lot of Chicago house mixed with some techno and acid. It’s pretty much the same thing now . . .

Chuck Love’s musical diversity may have landed him a spot with crossover label giant Om Records, but it’s his musical understanding that has kept him on the radar of the underground electronic audiences for more than three years. The Minneapolis musician didn’t start impacting the house scene until early 2005, when his breakthrough Frozen in Minneapolis EP debuted on Miguel Migs’ Salted Music impact. Backed by the commercially savvy appeal of an artist such as Migs, Love’s multi-tasking music style became a hot commodity at clubs across the country.

The soulful roots of Chicago house dug deep into the artistic mind-set of Andrew Emil, who channeled their influences into sound, art and audio experimentation. The accomplished result melds the smooth vibe of neo-jazz with the funkier influences of underground house. Emil’s recent venture, Four Play Music, is an attempt to expand his musical reach through a self-helmed record label. Four Play marks a home base for his own work— alongside several artists from Chicago and his native Kansas City, who he features on the imprint’s latest compilation, Andrew Emil Presents Four Play Music.

When Jamanta Crew’s Eduardo Marote (aka Prztz) wrapped up a three-day gig in Barcelona in 2004, he returned to his native Brazil with several tracks for the seminal Chicago house imprint, Classic. “It was a Monday morning, my last day there and I called Classic to have them listen,” Prztz said via his cell phone from Sao Paulo. It turns out the Classic label heads had been the ones looking for him. Months prior, several unlabeled tracks crafted by the burgeoning Brazilian P.A. act fell into the hands of Luke Solomon, who played them without knowing who made them. Solomon saw first-hand how crowds went off.

Since 2003, Danny White and his crew have been slumming it. With a few lessons in debauchery from creative cohorts Eddie Leader and Rucky (Dan Rucker), the U.K.-based trio Slum Science has been crafting a catalog of funky house tracks that reek of smoke, booze and ingenuity. Could the underground heads demand much more? Labels such as Deep Future, Icon, Jackin Tracks and Black Cherry certainly got buzzed on the smooth sound of their work. The trio’s string of successful drops led the production team to branch out on their own . . .

Living abroad in Amsterdam has repositioned the creative mind-set of Gene Farris, whose deep, spacey sounds echo back to an era of raves gone by. And while his recent batch of remixes is not about reinventing the wheel, the DJ/producer/label owner keeps his Chicago-influenced sound spinning on heavy rotation. In teaming with Control Records leader Bryan Jones of late, Farris has crafted an inspired bag of remix work that quips with quirky tech and acid lines while working audiences with organic finesse. In the mid-’90s, Farris played into another eclectic EDM movement that revolved around the Chicago-based Relief Records.

It’s been more than seven years since one of house music’s most-prolific legends bumped Milwaukee crowds. Now with more than 130 EPs to his name—including his 3-million-selling club gem “Get Get Down”—Johnson returns as part of the one-year anniversary party for the eclectic EDM monthly Boompty at Red Light. “It’s been great working with Red Light this past year,” said Georgie Geewiz, who co-organizes the night with Mike More. “They are very supportive of our party … the people at Red Light know what it takes to make music work.”

The hushed hype surrounding the kickoff of Projekt, Milwaukee’s newest EDM monthly, has sparked discussion among the underground dance community for nearly a month. “We came to the market…with a very creative, mysterious (marketing) method, using the Web as our main focus for promotions,” said Brad Valerine, a co-organizer of the event. “One message board even called us ‘Cloverfield rip-offs.’” Now the new night is ready to launch a barrage of what promoters call “avant” house music on the ears of the local dance scene beginning Friday, Feb. 29. Highlighting the clean, angular sounds of minimal and techno, Projekt aims to give audiences a regular mix of beats that may otherwise only get play in the occasional or one-off scenario.