CHRIS STASSY debuts a new name with the house single U know me

CHRIS STASSY has released "U know me," the first record under a name that differs from his old one by a single letter. The Dutch house producer, billed as Chris Stussy for sixteen years, announced the change on August 18 and put the track out through his CSS label with South London musician Marz Fay on it.

The title is the statement. "New name, same me," he said, arguing that the music, the energy and the connection with the people in a room are all unchanged, and that what has grown around the name over sixteen years, the shows, the records and the community, is what actually matters. Choosing a track called "U know me" as the first release under the new billing does the explaining for him.

The song itself is a rolling breakbeat groove with crisp percussion, warm rather than clinical, and it follows Lost, Found & Forgotten..., his debut album from April. That is a fast turnaround for a producer who took this long to make a first album at all.

The rollout was built around rooms rather than press. In the days before release he threw two free parties under the N.A.M.E. banner in Birmingham and Amsterdam, and the single landed on the day he returned to Creamfields. A packed run of international dates follows, including Chicago's ARC Music Festival, one of the few chances American fans have to catch him this year.

Name changes at this level of a career carry a real cost, since a decade and a half of search results, festival billing and playlist metadata all point at the old spelling. Doing it with a track whose title reassures the audience is about as neat a solution as the problem allows. The single is filed under electronic, and its date sits on the release calendar. House has had a busy month in our coverage, from Prospa launching the label Prophecy with a SAPIAN single to Above and Beyond releasing When You Believe with Victoria Horn.