New Ten City Album JUDGEMENT Reunites Byron Stingily and Marshall Jefferson

Judgement, Ten City’s First New Album in 27 Years is Out Today from Ultra Music

Some music can stand the tests of time. Some songs stay with us, invoke powerful memories, and can recall feelings and experiences like we just left them yesterday. That sweet vibe riding your emotions right now is proof that House Music in itself is powerful, that it can lift you up and energize your life, none moreso than the music of House pioneers Byron Stingily and Marshall Jefferson.

Some music just…moves you.

“This album is kind of like what we thought the future would be,” Byron Stingily says.

“When we did our first album as Ten City in 1988, my production partner, Marshall Jefferson, said, ‘Do you know, probably about thirty years from now, we’ll be able to do an album where you’re at home in Chicago, I can be in a whole other country, the musicians can be in another country, and everybody can be doing their different parts and sending them to each other over the computer. You’ll be able to get the best musicians or work with anybody from anywhere, because the computer will make it flow.’ And now, almost thirty years later, this album was recorded exactly like that, totally during the time of the pandemic.”

The creation of Ten City’s Judgement during a time of such pain and loss is a testament to the beauty of humanity, of people coming together across borders, across countries, across time to create something special, something positive that has the power to lift us up no matter where we are.

“It was funny how this new album came about,” Byron says. “I was shopping the idea of this project to several major dance labels throughout Europe. They all told me they were interested, but then they all had very specific ideas about how they wanted it recorded. If they did it, I would have had to work with their producer, or a specific group of people, or certain types of songs.

“All that changes things. In my mind, it wouldn’t be a Ten City album. It’s something else.

“I had just about given up, because I had a certain vision for it, and out of the blue, the head of Ultra Records called and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to be in Chicago, can we have dinner?’ While at dinner, he said, ‘I really want to do a Ten City album.’ He felt that we had so much more to offer, and we didn’t get the full attention we should have received over the years.

“Then he asked me two questions before we went any further. First, he asked me if I still get along with Marshall Jefferson, and I just chuckled. Marshall’s like my brother.”

“His second question was, if Ultra does the album, he wanted us to re-record That’s the Way Love Is and Devotion, which, at the time, I didn’t really want to do because it’s thirty years later,” Byron says. “I didn’t really want to re-create something that we’ve already created, but he said we could have creative freedom on all the other songs. That’s a good compromise. We can do that.

“I just thought it was funny that he asked if there was bad blood between me and Marshall, and I thought, how could there be? He’s my brother. He and I may argue, then next thing you know we’re on the phone cracking jokes with each other. The way we approach each other is we say what we need to say, even the things we might not want to hear from each other, but we receive it. It’s an honest brotherhood.”

In the years between Ten City’s last new album, 1994’s That Was Then, This Is Now, and today’s Judgement, both men have worked hard to establish their own successful solo careers. Marshall is a renowned international DJ, and Byron sings, writes, and produces his own music. Both men have continued to travel the globe for decades, performing to packed venues throughout the Americas, Europe, South Africa, Asia, and in countries like Croatia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and many more.

“We still perform around the world, and our audience is wider than ever before,” Byron says.

“Marshall Jefferson worked on the first Ten City album, and he was probably the most responsible for Ten City securing our first record deal,” Byron says. “He was the hot producer in House Music and he also happened to be my best friend. We’ve always been close. We’ve been talking about re-teaming for years, so when this project came up it felt perfect. We just felt like this is something that’s needed right now.”

Byron Stingily is also one of the founders of Chicago Devotion, a company built to be a gathering place where people can find the help they need now. The Chicago Devotion web portal features the team’s efforts to bring hard-to-find resources and information to the people so they can achieve their dreams – another example of the work Byron puts in every day to better peoples’ lives.

“We signed our deal with Ultra in March of 2020. So, all the things Marshall said we would do, we did.

“One of the background singers is in Los Angeles; he would record his parts and send me the file. The bass player was in Florida; the guitar player recorded in a home studio. It gave a little more freedom to the musicians.

“When you’re sitting in an expensive studio and you’re on that clock, it’s different, but some of our people did their parts right in the comfort of their own home and I think it made the process more relaxed. The musicians were able to play with a little more freedom as a result. The pressure of being in the booth, the pressure of ‘Did I get that note right?’ was gone — you can take your time.”

“Sometimes recording in the fishbowl with people watching you can make it a little hard,” Byron says. “You got a producer, an engineer, other musicians listening, people critiquing every note — this way you can go at your own pace, so to speak.

“A big part of it was we could experiment a little more. When everybody’s there, a lot of times you try to play it safe, and, creatively, we could experiment a little more this way.

“I gave one of our background singers an idea on what I wanted the background to sound like, and he took it and did something similar to what I asked for but gave it a whole new vibe. It was even better as a result. It wasn’t exactly what we talked about, but he took it somewhere else and it gave it a cooler vibe.”

Even the lyrics have that poetic feel that doesn’t seem as common in music today as it once was. Ten City’s music pulls you in, and you really hear the lyrics, the meaning, the emotion behind the music.

“From an artistic standpoint, the lyrics were written in a way to mean many different things,” Byron says. “I let someone listen to one of the songs the other day and they said, “This song sounds like it’s about a man and a woman, a loving relationship, but when I listened closer, it sounds like someone talking about their relationship with God.” I smiled because that was the purpose behind how the song was written. I never try to hit anyone over the head with my beliefs, but that was my meaning behind that song.

“On Judgement, the title track, it has different meanings and scenarios. One is talking about a government that has exploited and oppressed the people, not any one specific government, but one that is oppressive, has fed the people false information. It’s saying judgement is coming. Another is talking about a corrupt person who has been in a position of power who has not done right by the people. Another is about a person who has been promiscuous, who has cheated and stolen money, and another about a criminal who has gotten away with a crime and is on the run. It has all these different scenarios, and I wrote it in a way that it applies to numerous situations and on many different levels. It’s written on self-reflection, that we all have to get our lives together.”

And Judgement is the perfect soundtrack for picking ourselves up, for rebuilding, for uniting in unprecedented ways to create a better present and a better future for those who come after us, to leave them a legacy of hope and resilience and unity.

“I really would like to see the album do well, not just for us, but to prove to people that House Music is still a commercially viable art form,” Byron says. “I’m hoping this album can open the doors for more House albums and projects. There haven’t been a lot of new House albums distributed by major labels or major independents in a while. I want to take this as an opportunity, if it does well, that I can develop and introduce some younger artists to this art form and genre of music. That’s one of the purposes of this album as well.”

What stands out most to this writer is how uplifting Byron’s music is, as House Music itself can be, how it has this positivity, this energy, this get-up-on-your-feet vibe that we all so urgently need right now. Ten City has this power to elevate you and keep you lifted, and if that translates to being more positive, being kinder, being happier in our daily lives, then Ten City has done us all a great service yet again, 27 years later: it can move us all to make the world around us just a little bit better every day.

Judgement drops today, June 18th, from Ultra Music, and is available on all music providers. 

You can Download or Stream your very own copy Right Here.