A weird trend exists in the dance music press these days. It’s been around for a while, but seems to be in overdrive at the moment – and we’re not convinced it’s solely because most of what’s written in said dance press is prepared by young whippersnappers with no idea about the genre’s history.

Now, Ears To The House doesn’t think a comprehensive knowledge of dance music history from 1985 onwards is an essential trait to write about it – but some awareness of the past does help. And the lack of it in dance music press circles is painfully apparent whenever they write about anyone who’s been around since before the year 2000.

You can see it when they start bandying about words like “legend” or “pioneer” – something which makes them look like a Mafia member trying to show an appropriate level of respect for the Don. This might just work if the person genuinely did pioneer something, but otherwise it just leaves the writer’s ignorance showing.

Which is where Balance Series comes in. Now, Balance appear to be fans of the infamous DIN typeface – but that’s roughly where their similarity with Ears To The House fades out. This is how they referred to Josh Wink in an ongoing Facebook series about what they call “Selectors”…

Josh Wink has undoubtedly achieved much during his career – he has a strong back catalogue, some excellent remixes and is a gifted technical DJ. But what exactly is he supposed to have pioneered? If you’re going to use a statement like that, an explanation of what he’s meant to have pioneered is necessary.

Of course, it would help if Balance were using their own words here – which they aren’t. A quick search of the term “Josh Wink pioneer” reveals they’ve just copied and pasted these words straight off Wink’s Soundcloud page…

Infact, these words feature all across Josh Wink’s social media pages as well as his own website. This Resident Advisor listing for an event which took place in March 2012 confirms the words have been circulating online for at least a decade.

So if Balance didn’t write these words, who did? Ears To The House looked into this and found the September 2009 issue of Partysan, a self-branded “pocket magazine” available to read online in its entirety. If you go to page 53, you’ll see this…