Undrscovered: MF Quinn Bridges Classic House Influences With a Modern Club Edge
- Undrtone Blog
- 56 minutes ago
- 4 min read
For the 14th instalment of Undrscovered, we welcome US house producer and DJ MF Quinn, an artist currently turning years of musical curiosity into an increasingly focused run of releases.
Quinn’s relationship with electronic music stretches back well before the current project began gathering momentum. After initially exploring production, he stepped away to focus on a career in software engineering and app development before returning to music during the pandemic. What followed was less a simple restart than a period of rebuilding, refining his production process and working out exactly what he wanted MF Quinn to represent.
“I’m a house producer and DJ. The simplest way to describe my sound is classic house and tech house instincts presented through a modern lens,” he explains. “I’m drawn to groovy basslines, percussion with swing, disco and funk influences, and vocal phrases that stay with you after the record ends.”
That balance between familiarity and forward movement runs throughout his Undrscovered mix. Across 20 tracks in just under an hour, Quinn moves between vocal house, tech house, disco influences and tougher percussive territory, drawing connections between some of the artists who shaped his tastes and the direction his own productions are now taking.
“I wanted it to feel like a focused hour in a club: energetic, confident and ultimately uplifting,” he says. “The goal was to cover a broad definition of house while making it feel like one continuous journey rather than a collection of tracks.”
The names involved tell part of that story. Smokin Jo, D.Ramirez, Mark Knight, James Hurr, Grant Nelson, Deetron, Marco Lys, David Morales and Tony Romera all appear across the set, but one record carries considerably more personal significance.
Quinn’s remix of Smokin Jo and D.Ramirez’s ‘Inner Mind’ arrives via Toolroom Trax as part of its Leaders of the New School compilation. Having previously studied through Toolroom Academy and D.Ramirez’s Raven Studios courses, the release creates a direct connection between the artists and institutions that helped develop his production skills and the music he is now putting into the world.
“The original gave me a lot of great material to work with, but I chose one vocal motif and made that the identity of my version,” he explains. “For me, it captures how I’m taking those influences forward rather than trying to recreate them.”
That idea has become increasingly important as the MF Quinn catalogue expands. Alongside Toolroom Trax, forthcoming material across Play Records, World of Sound, NOXU Deep and WH Records is beginning to reveal different sides of his music without losing the central characteristics connecting them.
“It’s house and tech house built around groove, with disco and funk running through it,” he says. “The drums and bass provide the physical movement, while a vocal phrase or sampled texture usually gives the record its identity.”
Increasingly, Quinn is also finding that less can achieve more. Rather than continually adding elements, his attention has shifted towards repetition, tension and making sure every sound has a reason to exist.
“I’m learning how much impact can come from choosing the right few elements and allowing them enough room to work.”
That discipline extends beyond production. With music sitting alongside family life and a career outside the industry, studio time has to be deliberate. Rather than seeing that solely as a restriction, Quinn believes it has also protected him from some of the pressures facing emerging artists.
“There is constant pressure to release, create content, compare numbers and respond to whatever is currently gaining attention,” he says. “Some of that information is useful, but it can also pull you away from the instincts that made you want to create in the first place.”
His response has been to focus less on keeping pace and more on building something recognisable. Hosting MQ Sessions on Data Transmission has provided another outlet for that process, allowing him to develop his identity as a DJ and programmer while showing the broader musical world surrounding his productions.
It is also reflected in the way he digs for records. Label catalogues and DJ charts might provide the starting point, but Quinn tends to follow connections between artists, remixers and collaborators rather than simply searching within fixed genres. More importantly, every potential selection is considered in terms of what it can contribute to a wider set.
“Could it establish the mood, create a vocal moment, increase the pressure or provide a release after a tougher section?” he explains. “That way of listening often leads me across house, tech house, disco and more percussive club records without feeling tied to one narrow category.”
His Undrscovered mix puts that philosophy into practice. The opening stretch establishes its more musical and vocal foundations before gradually increasing the pressure, moving through chunkier percussion and hypnotic grooves before lifting once again towards its conclusion.
For Quinn, it arrives during a period where individual opportunities are beginning to connect into something more substantial. The releases are growing, his relationship with labels is developing and the distinction between his influences and his own identity is becoming increasingly clear.
“They should expect the MF Quinn identity to become clearer rather than suddenly change direction,” he says of what comes next. “The goal is to build a body of work that people can recognise without needing to see my name first.”
That might be the clearest way to understand where MF Quinn currently stands. This is not about abandoning the house records that first inspired him or attempting to disguise those reference points. It is about absorbing them, understanding why they worked and gradually finding his own place within that lineage.
Undrscovered 014 captures that process in motion: an hour of house music connecting where MF Quinn came from with where he intends to go next.
