It's back - and, ten volumes in, as infectiously good as ever: the Deep House primer from Push Communications.
You'll find everything a deep house aficionado
needs in an anthology that takes the temperature of a scene in feverishly fine form.
Poker Flat's Steve Bug kicks things off with 'Coconut Paradise' - a masterclass in crisp, high-definition house - while fellow elder statesmen, Martin Landsky - with a swaying, super-smooth treatment of the excellent 'Da Geh Bo' - and Italo-German house veteran Vincenzo push all the dancefloor buttons you'd expect - and then
some.
Alex Niggemann turns up in the guise of C'est Moi,
marrying a deadly deep, garage-tinged hue to his distinctively European sensibility, Tim Engelhardt - the wunderkind from Westerwald - serves up a motorik groove with a massive crescendo and both London's As I Am and Gran Canaria's Carlos Sanchez take us to the dancefloor with the vocal hook and pinging synth riff of 'In Too Deep' and the bump'n'grind of 'Nu Place' respectively.
Elsewhere, highlights abound, from the crisp crunch and tribal percussion of Djuma Soundsystem's 'Beatboxer' to the knotty piano riff of Johannes Brecht's 'Fêtes' and the deep, Pépé Bradock-esque 'We All We Are' from the mysterious The Unhottest. There are even two vocal-based contemporary classics - in the
form of Sascha Kloeber's husky 'You See' and Yannick Labbé's collaboration with Montreal vocalist Forrest.
Salzburg's Ken Hayakawa shows that his hometown is
still alive as a musical force with a minimal groove bathed in optimistic pads, Simon Hinter brings the jazz swing and low-slung sass of 'Easyweezy' and Frank & Tony explore blue-tinged, depth-charge deep territory.
Lastly, a trio of concluding tracks take us into blissful, downtempo territory, from the spine-tingling vocal flourishes of 'Without You' to the falsetto vibes of 'Cranes' to the deep house hoedown of 'Fiddler', with its campfire
handclaps and echoing mantras. Special mention finally to Chris Gruber - a lynchpin of
the Hamburg scene as both DJ and A&R man - who
showcases his production skills through exclusive, unreleased track 'Rhodes Trippin': an intoxicating thrum of deep, enveloping house.