Tech house is a subgenre of house music that combines stylistic features of techno with house. The term tech house developed as a shorthand record store name for a category of electronic dance music that combined musical aspects of techno, such as "rugged basslines" and "steely beats", with the harmonies and grooves of progressive house. The music originally had a clean and minimal production style that was associated with techno from Detroit and the UK.

In the mid to late 1990s, a scene developed in England around club nights such as The Drop run by the former Shamen rapper Mr C (Richard West) & Paul "Rip" Stone (co-founder with West of Plink Plonk), Heart & Soul and Wiggle run by Terry Francis and Nathan Coles. Other DJs and artists associated with the sound at that time included Charles Webster, Pure Science, Bushwacka!, Cuartero, Dave Angel, Herbert, Terry Lee Brown Jr., Funk D'Void, Ian O'Brien, Derrick Carter and Stacey Pullen. By the late 1990s, London nightclub The End, owned by Mr C and Layo Paskin, was considered the home of tech house in the UK. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, one of the earliest innovators in the genre was Lucas Rodenbush, (E.B.E), who was releasing records on the West Coast of the United States from 1995 onwards.