Microhouse music also known as Buftech takes minimal house to a new level, focusing on the essential dance-inducing elements of house music: the beat, the bass and the melody. Drawing from minimal techno and the glitch genre for its unique drums and chopped melody sound, it cuts house down to its bare bones. Microhouse can be thought of as a bridge between the minimal techno and tech house genres - its click-and-cut aesthetic mixes well and compliments techno while the funkier house and dub influences give it a greater accessibility and more danceable sound.

Percussion in microhouse is reminiscent of tech house drums, replacing typical house kick drums and hi-hats with small bits of noise. Microhouse artists often experiment with different ways of sampling to achieve this. Sampling is integral to microhouse and is one of the main contrasts between it and minimal techno. Rather than being synthesizer based, extremely short ('micro') samples of the human voice, musical instruments, everyday noises and computer created wave patterns are arranged to form complex melodies. Vocals in microhouse are often very simplistic, nonsensical, and monotone in nature, but some artists such as Matthew Herbert have been releasing microhouse songs with full vocal tracks.

The term microhouse is usually credited to music journalist Philip Sherburne, writing for the magazine Wire in 2001. It is generally accepted that the genre began life in Germany in the late 1990s, urged along by record labels like Kompakt, Perlon, Spectral Sound, Fabric, Telegraph and Force Inc.

Microhouse is somewhat obscure when compared to other genres of house and techno, but several cities including Cologne, Paris, Montreal, the Bay Area, Detroit, Chicago and Portland, Oregon have budding scenes.

Notable artists

Akufen
Benjamin Wild
Craqault
Deadbeat
Decomposed Subsonic
Frivolous
John Tejada
James Ruskin
Kit Clayton
Luomo (a.k.a. Vladislav Delay)
Martin Landsky
Matthew Dear
Matthew Herbert
Michael Mayer
Monolake
Mossa
M.R.I.
Oliver Ho
Pantytec
Robag Wruhme
Ricardo villalobos
Steve Beaupré
Tomas Jirku