Both the electronic music and jam band cultures spawned from the same intention: to use music to nurture community and lead listeners on a collective journey. Both continue to amass more and more followers while flying below the radar of mainstream music. Yet despite these similarities, the scenes surrounding the musical styles have remained surprisingly disparate.

With the release of DJ Harry’s debut, The String Cheese Remix Project (Instinct Records, SCI Fidelity Records), the Colorado-based DJ tempts listeners to forget stereotypes and stigmas by dynamically fusing the two genres. Make no mistake, this is House music: 66 minutes of spacious and textured sound dropped over deep, pulsating beats. But his partnership with The String Cheese Incident, a group at the forefront of today’s jam band movement, gives House music yet another dimension. With 90% of his samples taken from The String Cheese Incident’s live recording archive, Harry introduces a distinctive new strain of House: a live, progressive version.

The String Cheese Remix Project skillfully captures the joyous spirit of The String Cheese Incident and the fervor of the band performing live, without sacrificing the precision and driving energy so essential in the electronic genre. In fact, the fusion of the two styles creates an impressive natural alchemy. Expect a profoundly elated, highly emotive and irresistibly melodic wall of sound with plenty of steady builds and funky breaks. Certainly, Harry has encountered a new formula for organic and edgy House grooves that audiences seem eager to embrace.

DJ’ Harry’s inspiration for his new House fusion began after he moved from the Midwest to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1992. Upon exiting a Grateful Dead show at the Oakland Coliseum, Harry had a chance run in with The Wicked Crew (a San Francisco DJ collective). Garth and Jeno were hunched over turntables in the parking lot, satiating the crowd’s thirst for boogie. It was at that moment that Harry first recognized the link between the "new beat" pumping in the parking lot and the live improvisation he had just witnessed inside the venue: the crowd.

A lot would happen between that moment and today. Baggy pants, pacifiers and piercing would come to identify ravers and set them apart from the tie-dye, long hair, and REI fleece that frequented the jam band scene. Both groups have expanded, with fans attending all night dance parties and trading stories with their friends about other spectacular evenings like the one before. Harry would relocate to the Rocky Mountains and practice his unique DJing technique at local bars in the small mountain town of Telluride, Colorado. There, in 1994, he’d also meet the members of the rapidly growing jam band, The String Cheese Incident.

"We’d known Harry for a while before he approached us about doing this project," explains Keith Moseley, bassist of The String Cheese Incident. "As musicians, we’re always trying new things and expanding musically, so we decided to go for it. We knew that at the least our fans would dig the idea." It’s true that jam band listeners have been anxiously anticipating the album’s release, while fans of both thriving scenes seem open to the idea of rediscovering their common ground. Representing all risk-takers, DJ Harry’s String Cheese Remix Project offers music’s first genuine attempt to do just that.