Back catalogue: Deep House

Review: No matter your particular preference in the deep house world, this various artists' outing from Q1E2 Recordings is sure to have something for you. Mike Riveria & Marco Ohboy, for example, tap into an early sound on 'Euphoria' with its big, brash piano stabs and whistles, while A Soft Mist Production keeps it all cuddly and deep with languid chords draped over gentle drums on 'Upside Down Rainbows.' DatSIM brings in some space-tech vibes for a deft rhythm and neon infused sound on 'Influx' and The Rabbit Hole's 'Tail Groove' has a mad double bass sound jumping about beneath frantic jungle breaks.

Review: Bass Culture founder, Rex Club legend and standard bearer for the Parisian underground, Julien Veniel shows fine form with his latest effort landing on Phonogramme. Featuring four tracks that each veer toward the techier ends of the house spectrum, 'The Game of Life' is sure to find plenty of admirers of floor-focused subterranean club tackle. Launching via the bumping rhythms and bouncy bass of X-Calibur, it starts as it means to go on. Upping the energy a couple of notches, the wonky bass and paranoid vocals of 'Narcissistic Scratch' power over chunky drums for a strobe-lit, late-night workout. Scene stalwart Satoshi Tomiie keeps things looped and driving on his pumped version of 'Deadbeat', before the dubbed-out original sees the record home in deliciously heady style.

Review: Adeen Records returns with a superb EP that blends a classic with three new and fresh unreleased tracks. Deep house don Chez Damier's Panorama Bar Remix kicks off and is a a 2021 standout with a killer baseline and Spanish guitar that brings some sunny soul and makes for some top level house grooves. Makez then shines with 'Rocket Music' which has a chunky low end and glistening, golden piano chords making it a late night favourite. On the B-side, Adeen regular Alkalino delivers a tropical-infused edit for the peak time and Gledd closes with a classy cut 'Sere Yo' that is all about the drums. Lovely stuff.

Review: Spanish label NeighbourSoul bring a heraldic design sensibility to wildout disco edits on 12", with this latest record taking on a leonine art direction on the inner label and sleeve. A top-up to their enduring vinyl-only series, this one hears a resident editor arride four more most-pleasing disco loops, believably emulating a bygone time in which DJs would sticker and knife their records to create workable tools, in the absence of software.

Review: Markus "Delfonic" Lindner is well-schooled in decades of house and disco music. He brings all of that knowledge to everything he does and for this outing on Germany's Disco Disco he combines both of those influences. 'Flesh To Flesh' has a brilliant retro energy with lots of instrumental funk, live-sounding drums and horn stabs effervescing with real warmth. 'Kiss Kiss' is a big old-school vocal disco anthem with an exuberant glow and 'Set Me Free' gets more deep and dark with more house swing in the kicks. 'You Like It We Love It' is the final disco flame to ignite any party of people who really know what's up.

Review: These two classy producers, the former Norwegian and the latter from Switzerland, team up for a raw, heartfelt slab of underground house on Sex Tags UFO. Fuelled by weekly live jam sessions and arranged with pure instinct at Casa de Fett, this four-tracker feels organic, impulsive and gloriously unpolished i house music as a feeling, indeed. The opening cut hits immediately with a heavy bass presence, a jacking 909, swirling pads and an irresistibly uplifting melody. It's simple, efficient and laser-focused on the dancefloor's emotional core. Track two eases the vibe into a sunrise groove, weaving a classic Ibiza guitar into its dusty hardware pulse i loose, warm and full of promise. Flipping over, the third track dips even deeper. It's sentimental yet driven, with shuffling percussion and dreamy pads creating a bittersweet late-night atmosphere. The final track is the EP's toughest i a rough-edged acid house burner that brings grit and urgency without losing the duo's charmingly off-kilter touch. Throughout, DJ Sommer's slick studio craft and Burger Man's wonky sensibility merge into something greater than the sum of their parts.

Review: OGE hits release number 19 with a delectable new bap from DJ Sandwich, layering sweet programmable piano cheeses and cornichons between tricky, seeded deep tech sourdough slices. It's the first release by the artist for the otherwise usually "unknown artistic" moniker, through which the likes of Funk E, Vincentlulian, Phillip Boss and Giralda have also bared their identities. Best here has to be the low-filled 'Lee', whose sequent synth pianos, rubber resinous basses and splashy snares hint at a materially informed approach to dance production, emphasising raw organics and recalling the works of Bambooman.

Review: He's the original (and maybe only self-proclaimed?) house gangster and he is back in 2025 and sounding as good as ever. Puerto Rico by way of Chicago's DJ Sneak makes beats as raw as the meat he likes to chuck on his BBQ grill and UK house legend Nail must be a fan cause it's his label he lands on now. This is a solid four-tracker that ticks all the boxes with its killer grooves and smart loops. 'All I Need In Life' is a playful opener, 'Das Gud!' gets more intense and trippy with its bleepy melodic refrains and 'Help Me Somebody' then sinks back into loose and dusty, disco-tinged drums with classic cowbell hits. 'What You Expecting From Me' is a sweaty and gritty warehouse banger to close with aplomb.

Review: Original Chi-Town bad man DJ Sneak shows up with his latest selection of loop-driven house jams, serving up five floor-focused cuts on the 'Disko Dialogue' EP. A key figure in the second wave of Chicago house, his prolific career has seen him explore acid house, disco cut-ups, and hypnotic, tracky realms. Much, if not all, of that is on display here. The title track features looped strings and echoing vocals over a pounding kick and skippy snares, while 'Kick Da Flow' follows a similar trajectory, albeit with a slightly more restrained mood. 'Bottom Acid' ups the energy with pulsing 303 gliding over piercing drums, while 'Acid Wunders' dives into trippier territory, with its nocturnal groove endlessly undulating. The rolling rhythms of 'Elements' cap a fine EP, with DJ Sneak proving he's lost none of his big-room bravado or production swagger.

Review: After the critically acclaimed Avoude (5 stars & 'Top of the World' on Songlines, Bandcamp top pick, Le Monde, BBC Radio, Pop Matters), Sol Power Sound proudly presents a scorching remix EP from West African psychedelic powerhouse Dogo du Togo & the Alagaa Beat Band. Rooted in Togo's deep cultural and Vodun traditions, Dogo's sound is reimagined here by a heavyweight lineup of producers. Captain Planet kicks things off with a percussive African house groove, while Sol Power All-Stars ask, What if Prince joined Dogo in 1983? The result? A synth-laced funk HIIT workout. Detroit icons John Beltran and Blair French bring Afro-Brazilian and deep house flavors, before Glenn Echo closes with a mind-bending 12/8 dub trip.

Review: Big Love's popular compilation-style A Touch Of Love series returns for a sixth instalment, with boss man Seamus Haji once again showcasing a quartet of tried-and-tested treats. Fittingly, he kicks things off with 'Serious', a kind of hbrid heavy garage-house/disco house affair featuring organ solos aplenty and vocals from Chicago legend Mike Dunn, before Moon Boots joins the dots between sweet 80s soul and nu-disco on the synth-powered vocal number 'In My Life'. Heavy, French Touch-inspired disco-house vibes are provided by DJ Fudge ('Escapade'), before Dutch rising star Danou P - with a little help from pal Jamie 3:26 on vocals - delivers the organ rich deep house/garage-house fusion of 'Fly'.

Review: Former Paper Recordings artist Sophie Lloyd apparently started working on "Calling Out" whilst gripped by the January blues. Her intention was simply to make "happy music". To that end, she turned to her gospel roots. The results, shared here on 7" single for the first time, are little less than spectacular. With collaborator Dames Brown in tow, Lloyd's vocals - accompanied by a gospel choir, of course - simply soar above a jaunty, piano-heavy track rich in live instrumentation. It sits somewhere between traditional gospel, house and disco, with a flipside instrumental brilliantly showcasing the quality of the instrumentation throughout. The piano solos, in particular, are breathlessly good.

Review: TLM celebrates its 50th vinyl-only release with an exceptional offering of jazz-lounge house intonations. Legendary Canadian Mike Perras knocks down the first domino with 'Life Goes On', a jazzy house cut driven by a captive Rhodes groove. Craig Bratley follows with a deep houser featuring Tim Hutton on trumpet, while Mark Turner honours the legacy of Blaze on the A. The AA, meanwhile, introduces DFRA Experience Jazz Band from Argentina with 'Isolation', a smoothened pure jazz cut composed by Diego Ruiz and featuring Pablo Raposso on piano, Hernan Cassibba on double bass, Gonzalo Rodriguez De Vicente on sax, Joaquin Muro on trumpet, and Bruno Varela on drums. 'Sober' by Markus Enochson closes things out on a double bass boomer 'Sober', effecting a truly loose bonhomie.

Review: DBH welcome Mihai Popoviciu & David Delgado the the Pleasure Zone series with the 'Evolution' EP. Bringing jazzy, sloshy, jerking flavours to the tech house palette, 'Evolution' and 'Shifting' evolve and shift, convoking a delegated moot of propulsive chords and forward-driving janks, conveying the mood of a finely tuned closed clockwork system chugging away like the central engine of a wider contraption. Closer 'Black Light' operates more readily in the lower regions of things, proving unafraid of sounds that lean towards the more peripheral and umbral.

Review: Detroit-raised, London-based Demi Riquisimo assembles a dynamic mix of label favourites and fresh talent on Love State, the 22nd release from his Semi Delicious imprint. This six-track V/A hears offerings from Demi himself alongside Clint, Swoose, Lulah Francs, Dukwa, Anastasia Zem & Asa Tate, blending club modernity with classic analogue dance influences, sampling every sonic cate from Italo to tech house. Best among the bunch has to be Swoose's 'Re/Vision' and Anastasia Zems' 'Eternal Beauty', which bring together wasted electro, Italian new beat and trance for well-measured tinctures of dreaminess.

Review: Deep-headed, deeper-bodied dub house, hurtling our way from New Yorkers Dopeus and Satoshi Tomiie. Building on Tomiie's already relatively storied career, this chronological time-clock keeps track of the big smoke's early hours for us: '2AM' and '3AM' build to knifing edges, the latter track especially working from blueprints of overdriven satu-rave and chambered echoic dub techno, basking in hollowness. As we cross into the temporal impossibility of '4:60AM', 909 puff snares and naively high strings are accrued, and by the turn of 'Sunrise', an entire breakbeat has worked its way around our eyelid bags.