Anthony Middleton Reflects On Philip Jung And The Human Side Of House Music [Op-Ed]

Philip Jung’s passing has left a clear absence across the house music community, and Anthony Middleton’s essay meets that loss with honesty, care, and a wider question about what the scene has become. His piece, titled The Air We Used to Breathe, starts from grief, then opens into something larger: a reflection on connection, shared purpose, and the human relationships that once sat much closer to the center of dance music.

Middleton writes from the perspective of someone who remembers the scene as a network of real friendships, shared rooms, unfinished ideas, late conversations, favors, remixes, parties, and support systems that existed before everything became so measured by numbers, visibility, and individual gain. The essay carries that tension plainly. It honors Philip as someone who kept reaching outward, kept checking in, and kept treating music as a reason to bring people together.

This is a tribute, first and foremost, and it also reads as a request. Middleton is asking the community to remember what it felt like to care about each other with less calculation. In the wake of Philip’s death, that request feels even more touching because it comes from lived experience, and because the loss behind it is real. The rest of the words are from Anthony Middleton.

The effects of loss are strange, unexpected, painful, but cathartic. And sometimes clarity only crystallizes from extreme circumstances that are out of one’s control. The pain becomes the gift — an initiatory threshold we didn’t choose but cannot avoid. Such an event  has just happened to us all. A friend and pillar of our community has left the building, and in the shadow of that lost love, I wanted to share some thoughts on the music world he loved so much and tried so hard to nurture. I hope it resonates with some of you. 

Before the order, there is always chaos — but what a beautiful, organized chaos it was. The house music scene from the nineties through to around 2015 was vibrant, passionate, creative — and beneath the surface ran a current of connectivity. Solidarity. We were happy in our small bubble together. What we didn’t fully understand then was that we were living inside a genuine cultural field — something generated not by any individual but by all of us together, requiring  our proximity and our trust to sustain itself. 

But as the industry grew, we lost a little piece of ourselves. The piece that connected us as one. Now everyone is singular, pursuing their own path — because the system has cleverly separated us. Devolution at work. Art replaced by money. Community replaced by ego. And  

Perhaps that is exactly what a dying paradigm does in its death throes — it atomizes the culture, isolates the individual, and turns everything sacred into a terminal transaction. 

This community was founded on love and driven by rebellion. Its essence was counterculture and interdependence. We nurtured each other, showed up for each other — not just when we happened to be playing the same venue — and freely contributed to one another’s projects.  There was a kind of musical socialism to it — everyone’s expression of equal importance, all of us unconsciously working toward a common goal. A collective intelligence, expressing itself through rhythm and dance. Our field of vision has since narrowed considerably. As if in survival mode, our focus is just wide enough to worry about Me. Nobody cares what others are doing or making. Money has become everything. 

Ironically, the same thing happened in the late sixties. Pre-Woodstock, some of the greatest  musicians of the twentieth century were all living within walking distance of each other in  Laurel Canyon, LA. The Doors, The Byrds, CSN&Y, Joni Mitchell, The Mamas and the Papas —  all close friends, flitting between each other’s houses, not even knocking, playing till dawn  and beyond, forming bands, breaking up, experimenting and inspiring each other into some  of the most transcendent music ever made. As someone once said, musicians need to breathe the same air. It was as if a mycelial network ran beneath that canyon, transmitting something invisible but essential between them. Post-Woodstock, everything suddenly changed. The cross-pollination stopped almost overnight as the industry smelled the money.  The moment that community was monetised and dispersed, the magic evaporated. Sound 

familiar? 

Phillip Jung represented an alternative path. The original one. Always concerned about everyone else. Generous with his time, his money, his heart, and his music gifts. A rare old  soul from an age where what we valued was each other, not our net worth or social media  weight. He never stopped connecting and giving of himself. He flew the flag for the old ways,  quietly leaving the scene behind when it no longer served — and even then he maintained the  space, weaving us together, until the day he left us. 

At some point we were all like that. Before we lost our way. That was a special period in all our lives and in the life of the scene itself. Something real was moving through us then.  Something bigger than us that knew what it was doing. Do you remember? Philip never forgot. Always positive, always altruistic, picking us up when we fell. 

In this tough moment, I want to focus on one good thing. This passing is a reminder that we are a community. Look how it feels when one of us is lost. We are stronger together. Greater together. When we share — when we don’t fake it — we create real magic. Not metaphorically. Actually. The music was always a technology for that — for dissolving the membrane the system works so hard to maintain between us. A sort of resonance field that only activates when we show up for each other. But when we let it pull us apart, we become weakened, alone and defensive. And life becomes a process of just trying to stay afloat. 

In his loving memory, I want to invite you all to remember how we used to be and reach out to each other again. Renew old friendships. Share music. Remix for the love of it. Play together,  play for free, cross-pollinate, and re-cultivate our beautiful, magical scene. Philip and I talked many times about this. 

I miss him. 

I miss you all. 

I miss what we were — and I know you do too. 

This was his parting gift to us. 

It’s time to find each other again. 

Don’t be a stranger. 

One Love 

NB. Philip left behind his wonderful partner, Valentina, and his soon-to-be-born son, Rico. In his 

loving memory please feel free to contribute to the go fund me which will support Rico as he  steps into this world Philip loved so much.