At 122 BPM, ARMEI's 'Crowd Control' opens the seventh installment of Artist Choices unhurried: E minor, five and a half minutes of restrained tech house that works as a statement of intent rather than an opening punch. It's the lowest tempo on the whole record, and from here the listen only climbs.
The climb is quick. EverMode's 'I Can See' already runs at 128, and Mirco Costa's 'Friends', the second-longest cut of the batch, settles into the 129 that will dominate most of the journey. Nacho Scoppa's 'Heartbreaker' brings the first twist: same tempo, but the record's first hint of minimal/deep tech and a jump from minor keys to a D major that brightens the room right before the summit.
'Labad On', the record's core
The peak arrives on the fifth round, and it's no accident that it's the compilation's only remix. iO Mulen reworks 'Labad On' by Timid Boy, alias of Damien Almira: a Frenchman from Montpellier, former resident at Paris' Rex Club for Ellen Allien's parties, one-time journalist for Trax magazine and co-owner of the Time Has Changed label since 2007. With that résumé behind it, the cut inherits the D major of 'Heartbreaker' and stretches the record to its maximums: 130 BPM and 7:08 — the longest and fastest track at once, the whole journey's weight resting on a single point.
What follows is a controlled descent, and the final stretch belongs to minimal/deep tech. Sergio Saffe's 'Diptyque' drops the tempo a notch and returns to minor territory with a B-flat that darkens the floor, and Francis De Simone's 'Fashion' closes at 125, retracing the path without repeating it. Heard front to back, this seventh Artist Choices from Variety Music draws a near-perfect bell curve: seven cuts, seven different artists, one single gesture of rise and fall. More than a compilation, it plays like a set programmed with a ruler — the kind of record that makes more sense first minute to last than cherry-picked.
Sources: Deep House Amsterdam