‘70s Soul is the House Band’s ‘Foundation’

House music--the pulsating, high-energy style that’s the current rage in dance music--tends to be as vapid as it is hypnotic.

But three musicians from Chicago, the home of house, set out on a mission back in 1986 to prove that the style could be more than mindless.

“We felt that soul was lacking in club music, and we wanted to recapture that soul in our music,” said Byron Stingily, lead singer of Ten City.

“There’s a lot of good music out there, but it seems like people no longer make songs that are a part of themselves,” he said. “Everyone is trying to use the same formula that someone else used for a hit record. We are trying to approach our music from a different perspective.”

Though Ten City, which also includes guitarist Herb Lawson and keyboardist Byron Burke, uses house music as its starting point, Stingily credits the three members’ diverse musical tastes for the refreshing sound of the recent debut album “Foundation.”

“Each one of us likes different music,” he said. “Herb, he’s deep off into the rock thing. I was into funk, and Byron was into the Philly dance music and jazz. The only common denominator is that it’s all music from the ‘70s, and each has its own type of soulfulness.”

Unlike most groups to come out of the house scene, Ten City relies on acoustic instruments and even a real drummer to get the point across.

“Earl Young played on all the Philly International stuff--Harold Melvin and all that,” Stingily said of Ten City’s hired drummer. “And we use acoustic instruments whenever possible . . . real piano and horns.”

Now that “Foundation” is out, Burke is anxious to move forward with touring and producing other artists.

“We always wanted to produce Evelyn (Champagne) King, so we went in and did two songs for her upcoming album,” he said. “But we only want to produce things that we’re genuinely interested in. We are ready to grow. We see where we want to go and we all know how big it can be, so we’re just waiting for people’s tastes to develop along with us.”