Two minutes and seven seconds are all Dropheadz needs to open the door: 'The Drum', in D minor at 125 BPM, is pure welcome-mat percussion, no detours. 'Here I Am', the instrumental from Sean Norvis, Copamore and Larisa Mester, eases down to 120 and hints at a gentle ride. Then, on the third cut, the record shows its double face: Mike G's 'Need U The Most' leaps to 150 BPM and makes it clear this Volume 17 will be no straight motorway.
The middle stretch is mainstage territory: between LeDoc's 'Everybody' —at 4:36 the longest cut of the batch— and the Rolling Brothers remix of 'MAYE', nearly everything cruises between 124 and 128 BPM, with landmarks like DIMIX's vocal mix of 'Leading Distance' or Jacob Maess's luminous 'Wonderful Song'. But every few miles the ground gives way: Gruv42's 'I Already Know' drops to 70 BPM, ZKY's 'Stuck On You' floats at 95 and Rave Knight's 'Off My Mind' sinks back into half-time. These are detours, not accidents: Nothing But, a label running parallel Beatport series in tech house, trance and organic house, treats these Sessions as a living catalogue, and here the catalogue forks on purpose.
The final drift
The last third confirms the escape. 'Hektikk (I Am Elektrikk)' pairs Elektrikk with Urbanstep —Yuri Grauberger, a Latvian producer from Riga used to grinding genres together, with over a hundred million plays to his name— on an electric 86 BPM that marks the point of no return. Villa Savoye's 'Get Lost With U' tries to reclaim the floor at 146, but the three closers already live somewhere else: Jackson Frost's 'In Future Bass', the fastest at 160 and as brief as the opener; Max Shandula's 'Memories' at 144; and Distillat's 'Life Support', switching the lights off at 103 BPM in A-flat minor, nearly as long as 'Everybody'. Eighteen mainstage cuts against seven of trap and future bass, and yet the record ends far from where it began: that drift is its real argument.
Sources: Beatport · Last.fm
