Take "Festival", released as track A2 on the 1994 U Know How I Feel EP on Relief. The drum programming on this track is utterly spellbinding. It builds without the slightest change in tempo - almost as if it's getting louder and louder. Rather than just a crush of BPMs leading up to a peak, there's an actual progression.

Producers have won Grammys without figuring that out.

Or 1997's "Freefall" from the In and Out of Fog and Lights LP on Peace Frog. Within 5:35, this deep track relates a sentiment of utter tranquility. "Don't Stop" from the brilliant Tangled Thoughts EP (Relief, 1994) does about the same, toying with the long, looping jazz riff that you can hear in many productions from Chicago from that era.

Or the title track from 1995's A Moment of Insanity EP (Planet E), with that rabid, dirty beat. 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? Try "Blast Me". Weird proto-minimal techno? Try "On This Planet". Heavy groove? "What You're Gonna Do?" Deep and jazzy? "Freefall". We could go on...

Most if not all of these tracks are out of print, and having been made in the decade prior to the very existence of the MP3, some will not see the light of day again. I don't know that any of them were "hits" by the standards of the industry of the time, but 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.

That's why I wanted to write this story. Someone, somewhere down the line is going to discover all of this again and the songs are going to be worth more than the rare artifacts of a bygone era that they're worth now. Hopefully, Spencer will be there to see it.