Various - Nightbird ADE Sampler 2012

Our second ADE sampler tonight comes from Sebastian Davidson's ever-reliable Nightbird Music.

The EP gets off to a slow-burning, deeper-than-deep start with Rami Deejay's soul-drenched Burn Burn, then picks up the pace in fine style with the vintage/retro Chi-town deepness of 4BeatClub's The Warehouse. Phonic Funk's proper garage-y Aus follows, then comes Mass Digital's dark room vocal anthem-in-waiting Things We Done Together, before Fil Lavin's Nude takes us into the 4am eyes-wide-shut jacking zone and Peter O's gorgeous come-down treat Back In The Day soothes us off into the stratosphere.

Or to put it another way: six superb slices of deep house and proper garage done very, very right. It's a bit unmissable this one, really.

Out: Sunday (Oct 14)

About: If you happen to be going to ADE then I believe Nightbird are having a bit of a do on the 18th… otherwise you can find 'em on Facebook, on Soundcloud or at their own website.

Enthousisaste Gasten & Freak Strano – Slide It In

Sebastian Davidson's Nightbird Music serves up what is undoubtedly one of the label's techiest offerings to date here.

In its original form, Slide It In is a throbbing, pulsating deep house/deep techno cut that opens with a long dramatic intro, then settles into a bottom-heavy, bubbling groove, with a burst of hands-in-the-air tinkling synths in the middle. Seb's own remix brings the light, and is a sun-drenched, Balearic-leaning affair, while the Phonic Funk rerub takes us in a slightly proggier direction.

But for all their birdsong and lilting Spanish guitars, neither remix can compete with the original when it comes to energy and the sheer order-to-dance factor. Something of a departure for Nightbird, then, but a successful one.

Out: This week

About: This is number 30 from Nightbird Music, who can be found on Facebook and Soundcloud.

Phonic Funk - Dreaming Of You

First release on here for a while from Nightbird – we lost touch for a little while when my old iDJ email stopped working but it's sorted now – and I'm pleased to be able to report the French label hasn't lost its… knack (I nearly said 'touch' but I won't, for obvious reasons!)

Dreaming Of You is, for the first 3.45 or so of its life, a simple chugging deep/tech-house groove… before a big analogue synth crescendo sweeps everything away before it and the track drops away into a few moments of hands-in-the-air beatless bliss. And then in comes this trumpet… before we're back, now fully refreshed and energised, into the chuggery again. If you thought deep house couldn't do dancefloor drama, or if you thought you couldn't do big proggy breakdowns in a jazzy kinda way, think again! Awesome stuff.

And that's not all. Daniel Kyo's mix is even more dramatic, with a big, slow-building bottom-end that's positively hair-raising and more than a hint of The Man With The Red Face about the whole affair, while bonus cut Trapped (no relation to the Col Abrams classic) lightens the mood a little with some classic deep-but-uplifting house flavas.

Blending elements of prog, deep and tech house, this is, quite simply, a superb EP.

Out: This week

About: In one of the last-ever issues of iDJ, I named Sebastian Davidson's Nightbird as one of THE best deep house labels around. On this evidence, I see no reason to revise or retract that judgement at all! Find out more about 'em here