When a compilation series lands a name like Nitrous Oxide, it is worth paying attention. Polish producer Krzysztof Prętkiewicz was an essential part of the Anjunabeats sound in the late 2000s, released his 'Dreamcatcher' album there in 2010 and even curated the label's twentieth-anniversary mix. His 'Rise & Shine' arrives here as a 3:49 radio edit —139 BPM, A minor— and it is pure craft: melody up front, tension well managed, not a bar wasted. For LW Recordings, the compilation house the Label Worx team has run out of London since 2009, it is the strongest argument this third volume makes.
The other name with a track record is Nicola Maddaloni. The Neapolitan —remixer and engineer with releases on Abora and Redux, and author of MIDI packs for Myloops— takes Simon Fischer's 'Still Alive' and stretches it to 6:35 in B-flat major: textbook uplifting at a dead-on 140 BPM, the tempo that rules the whole volume.
'Navarra', the odd one out
The third stop is the most interesting one. Figal's 'Navarra' is the only cut on the record tagged outside the main floor: eight-plus minutes of hypnotic trance in F minor at 142 BPM, closer to a dark booth than to a festival anthem. That it sits next to Maddaloni's uplifting without clashing says good things about the sequencing. It is also the second-longest track of the lot, just two seconds shy of the record holder.
And as its mirror, 'Eternal Travellers' by Invisible Signs and Higher Instincts: 8:10, the longest cut of the programme, and the tonal reverse of 'Navarra' —G-flat major against F minor, 136 BPM against 142—. On paper, the friendly face of the same long-form format. Between those two poles, with the established name and the pedigreed remix as guarantees, this third volume reads best not as a catalogue but as four strong decisions surrounded by context.
Sources: Anjunabeats · TuneAttic · Myloops · Labelsbase
