Nico Szabo & Aske Izan - Paranoid

Anjunadeep continues its unbeaten streak of making me want to move to a city I can’t afford. Paranoid from Nico Szabo and Aske Izan is exactly the kind of sophisticated after-hours deep house the label has spent over a decade perfecting. It’s hypnotic without being boring, riding a groove that slowly tightens its grip while these moody restless synths circle overhead. The title fits, because there’s a tension running through the whole thing that never fully resolves, which is what keeps you locked in for the full runtime. Anjunadeep tracks live or die on atmosphere and this one builds a genuinely immersive one, the sort of record that works at 1am in a dark club or 8am watching the sun come up. Szabo and Izan clearly understand the assignment, leaving plenty of room for the groove to breathe instead of cluttering it with noise. Deep house this patient takes real confidence. This is one of the underrepresented genres on the blog lately, so I’m more than happy to give it the spotlight. Let it cook.

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