Anjunadeep 10 (Album Review)

I gave Anjunadeep 9 my all. Multiple attempts, later listens, nothing changed. I still wound up not really finding a way to enjoy or engage with the two disc album successfully, even months post-review. The best I could do was my own fan mix of it. The first half of the compilation wasn’t bad but the flaws weren’t something I was ever really able to look past and parts of the mix / experience never really stuck out, much like the compilation I had previously compared it to: Anjunadeep 07. In looking back and in preparing for Anjunadeep 10, I was a little bit on the skeptical side that James & Jody were now too heavily focused on making albums out of compilations (like 07, 08, and 09) instead of making those good mixes that become albums all their own (like 04, 05, and 06). And even with Anjunadeep 10 here and easily getting several listens out of me (because it’s good), it still feels like James & Jody struck some sort of magical gold on Anjunadeep 08 that won’t be replicated for quite some time.

But here we are, ten years of Anjunadeep compilations in total, a series I have been following closely since 2013 when I nabbed 04 and, a few months after, 05. How can I not be a little excited? The first things on my mind for AD10 were “What’s gonna happen here?” Label heads James Grant & Jody Wisternoff are probably way too busy keeping the hot label running on a scheduled basis to really consider these compilations as failures or successes in any right (let’s be real: If they make money and draw new listeners, they’re successful in those rights). James & Jody definitely take their time with these things and curate them to what they consider their own acceptable levels of “perfection”. No creative work is done until the creators accept it for what it is and release it to the world. These compilations are always a juggling act of finding new talent, figuring out which tracks should be promoted to highlight the road ahead, the year behind, and make two really enjoyable listening experiences out of the strong pool of tracks to pick from. So, despite these compilations really being just good marketing tools for the label, the critic in me thinks of them as unique plays and developments of ideas as the label shapes and changes over the years. It’s just hard for me to see these things any other way until years and years later when they’re just really nice to listen to.

And that’s why it’s equally interesting to see that James & Jody really have done what they said they wanted to do with this compilation: Forward looking, forward thinking, eyes on the future, that’s what they wanted to focus on with this compilation. And Anjunadeep 10 does so, very very well. You can feel structural mix lessons learned from previous compilations and utilized to do something very different with their format. While these are two distinct mixes with their own tail ends, it takes a couple listens to realize that James & Jody actually wound up making a nearly three hour DJ set out of the two discs. Anjunadeep 10 takes you on a journey that starts steady, plays with melodic groovy styles, goes deep, crosses over into the second disc with endless ambient and textured tech, and steadily rises to a climax at 3AM by the ending of disc 2. That’s something the Anjunadeep compilations have never really achieved before, and while there’s certainly some weaknesses to this formula (we’ll get into it), it definitely works if you have the patience to try the album in full two or three times. It’s not my favorite compilation they’ve done (05 and 08 remain undefeated), but boy is Anjunadeep 10 the most forward thinking interesting thing James & Jody have done in the album series so far.

First though, let’s talk about the music and the artists, because it is a compilation first. There’s a great handful of new artists here and at this point we can practically see the various artists leapfrogging their success and release schedules from Anjunadeep 07 onwards. With Luttrell and Yotto having recently both released their album projects on Anjunadeep, they have some highlights and show-stopping numbers on the discs (I swear, “Nothing Like You” is so dang good it could’ve been a bonus track for Yotto’s Hyperfall, I’d even love to hear a mashup of it with “Walls”). And individuals introduced to the label during the Anjunadeep 09 era (mid-’17 through mid ‘18) are now really starting to make their stronger strides. Modd, who at first felt a little behind the times going that ambient wood-textured progressive house route is really showing their capability to play all over the map. “Swallow’s Nest” with Hosini is a tragic sounding tech piece with some wonderful strings and wind pieces, while “Ruskela ” is an absolute blast of a groovy jam (with more strings!). Dosem is becoming a slow burning beast of his own on the label, which is such a change from their days back around Toolroom. Antic’s recent track “Jura” is here in all its climactic glory. And the veterans are here to play as well. Ben Bohmer has never sounded this good. A remix of Eli & Fur’s “Night Blooming Jasmine” from last year makes the cut. Lane 8 brings his own special remix of Virtual Self’s “Ghost Voices”. 16 Bit Lolitas show up with “You Are High”, a track that feels close in companion to the recently announced “Vette”, both of which are reminiscent of developing Cubicolor days. And Aiiso has two more tracks to show off as well, with “Programmer” definitely taking the cake in all its crazy groove chugging vibes (kinda bummed “Gravity” from AD09 never got a full release but now I just want “Programmer” to get its own release). James & Jody even take the time to get in on the fun and release a collaboration for the first time, not a remix of something they love like so many previous AD releases. It’s about dang time too because “Dapple” is wonderful.

And yet, plenty of newcomers are here as well, a tribute to Anjunadeep’s eye for talent that never ceases. Ocula, for example, has some recent releases on mau5trap and has an upcoming release on Lane 8’s niche label This Never Happened. But their new track “Immunity” is an early-disc 1 groovy delight. And Ole Biege has been on recent Anjunadeep explorations but nothing has sounded quite so great as their new key-mashing “All the Time”. Fairchild is stepping out into the light as a new artist named Nox Vahn (taking up three tracks on the comp, two in collaboration with house veteran Marsh). Nox Vahn’s tracks are very reminiscent of Anjunadeep 05, this is a very good thing and I really think “There is Peace Beyond” has the legs to do some charting. CRi is a new Canadian artist flexing progressive house vibes here. And I know I mentioned “crazy groove chugging vibes” and “developing Cubicolor days” for two different artists earlier, but Jazz Do It is a musical enigma whose track “For A Moment” sounds like “A New High” by Cubicolor clashing with Spencer Brown’s “Audio”. I tried to find Jazz Do It online and I got a bunch of foreign website links that didn’t look remotely connected to music. Seriously, where do James & Jody find these people? Oh and Spencer Brown makes their debut on the compilation as well with a progressive tech number “Sapporo” made with Qrion. For most this would be some sort of an amazing breakthrough onto the label, a long awaited heralding moment, but if you were following Spencer Brown’s rise to success last year and the incredible tour and releases that followed, him showing up on Anjunadeep and the track itself are naturalistic progressions of S.B.’s career to do everything imaginable in house music.

But it’s not enough for the compilation to just have some awesome tracks we can’t wait to buy down the road. Anjunadeep 10 is weirdly structured at first glance, but well done. The mix right off the bat alludes to lessons taken in from Anjunadeep 08 by letting Hiatus start the journey again with a track all their own from August of last year. This time, “Relic” is much more ambient and roomy, with echo guitars creating that space while piano and slow percussion make that space physical. Lycoriscoris speeds up the mix and keeps the textures interesting before the early phase of the mix is wrapped up with Ocula’s “Immunity”. The parallels to AD08’s structure are evident at this point as “Immunity” on AD10 is a few steps removed from “Your Love is an Echo” on AD08 in tone and placement here. But instead of carrying forward from “Immunity”, BAILE provides respite and tonal change into pure deep house with their track “Soft Light”, an ecclectic hip thing that allows the mix to be a bit more traditional in the deep house sense for a bit. Then Luttrell’s absolutely massive melodic techno track “Still Dreaming” shows up as a segue into the very chilled out sessions created by 16BL’s “You Are High” and that Lane 8 remix of “Ghost Voices”. From there the mix gets deeper, more progressive, and more techy, slowly taking moments to stay put and chill before finding more ways to strip away melodies and leave just ambience and beats. It all gets very melancholy and moody in ways that will remind you of AD09, especially with Jody & James’s remix of bored’s “Someone”. But we’re not lost here, we know exactly where we are in this process and moments feel distinct enough. And that’s the very moment the mix pulls up in a maneuver that’s only a little bit jarring as Modd’s “Ruskela” is smartly brought into play to serve as a temporary bump in the deep night before Ben Bohmer’s “Little Lights” carries away mix one.

Really though the end of the mix and the need for a climax here exists because this is technically two mixes. If you let the brief slowdown do its thing and keep listening, starting disc two respects your desire to carry the journey onwards as fast as possible. Aiiso’s “City Lights” is a nice ambient playful thing that quickly gives way to one of those nice Nox Vahn tracks, which wastes no time getting you back up to speed and bringing melodies back into play for the night. It’s here that James & Jody show off “Dapple” before giving a two minute interlude to a remix they did of a track called “Autumn’s Feathers”, which is a track from 2015 by someone not-that-popular named Jani R. It’s here and on a remix of “Things That Matter” (it’s from 2017) by Tomas Barford that James & Jody are doing what I think might be the most unique and excellent thing the label could use more often: Whatever James & Jody feel like doing sometimes. A remix of a random chill out track from 2015 isn’t a death sentence for the label, but so often these two are busy remixing and reworking tracks to fit the compilation instead of making their own stuff or just appreciating things all on their own. A remix of a track from 2015 and their own tracks is an excellent signal of these actions, and so was their remix of “Alchemy” back on AD05, and their remix of “Love is Not Enough” during AD08. If ever there was a time to celebrate and feel comfortable doing what you wanted with the imprint, I can’t think of one better than Anjunadeep 10. The mix continues to carry upwards from there with that Rodrigues Jr. remix of “Night Blooming Jasmine”, which makes way for Aiiso’s “Programmer”, that Jazz Do It Track, and so on. As you get towards the last 30 minutes of disc two, Jack Lost has a beautiful vocal track called “Walls”, which is then upped by Yotto’s “Nothing Like You”, which is given brief pull back by Fluida’s “A Self and a Mind” before Luttrell’s leading album single “Out of Me” shows up with really nice mix edits to give it some more “oompf” as an album climax.

Except, “Out of Me” feels like the second of three different climaxes in the second mix. “Nothing Like You” just seven minutes ago was a great anthem and a few settling tracks after “Out of Me”, Antic’s “Jura” is doing the big climactic thing with less percussion but has to make way for actual last track “Tempest” by Kidnap. This is the flaw of Anjunadeep 10, the design works as two unique mixes actually working together to create an excellent (almost) 3 hour set that definitely has the feeling of a DJ set: You have your anthemic moments, you have your 2o minute spots of keeping things steady and your bridge pieces that move you deeper or higher into the music in ways. AD10 is built to start steady, get deep, really deep, and then climb upwards till it reaches a nice peak above where the whole experience started, and then take a pretty stroll down to the end just below where we started on disc one. And, for the record, this works for the most part in a really good way (actually it’s kinda radical for the label). Anyone who has spent five hours at a club from start to finish and seen the performing DJs change and watched how they adjusted the mood and journey for the night can relate to what they are hearing in this 2-disc compilation. But the big climaxes, the anthems, the parts that have all the singing in them, they’re front and back loaded with a whole lot of deep in the middle. What makes this experience different from anything attempted before is that it’s built well to carry the listener and change gears every now and then instead of carry the monotony for too long or change things up too often. The mid section of the two discs isn’t bad, it just feels new and weird being bombared with three climaxes not spaced too far from each other on Anjunadeep compilations. As mentioned in the AD09 review, the biggest problem James & Jody face these days is that the label is growing and getting so much talent that they can’t quite fit all the great stuff onto two discs anymore. “Too much good” is a welcome problem, I’m sure.

The great news is that this is the only major flaw sitting on the compilation: It requires a bit more of a time and focus investment for the mix to truly do its thing, where you’ve been listening for a full two hours and are wondering just how long it can keep you in this melodic jam without picking up the pace. Then it does. And it feels great when it happens. And as someone who has been listening to these compilations for seven years now, that’s not too bad of a request in my personal investment. People will undoubtedly have some nitpicks. I personally don’t care for a couple tracks (that’s bound to happen when you have 38 tracks across two discs). And it’s sad to see that Anjunadeep is no longer including PDFs of the booklet on digital copies of the album (I bought the CD online, which is still on its way but they give you a digital copy to download while you wait, nice touch AD). Hopefully the booklet will feature the coveted “here’s why we chose this song” info that they were including on so many previous Anjunadeep compilations.

Anjunadeep is here to stay. And while the compilations aren’t always going to be the most amazing things I’ve ever heard (like 05 and 08), and sometimes they’ll be a little lackluster compared to others (like 07 and 09), some releases are going to be wild and daring like Anjunadeep 10. And as long as things stay fresh, interesting, and different, I really can’t ask for anything else. (but please, gimme those Aiiso releases)

Anjunadeep 10 is now available to buy and stream practically everywhere. It’s definitely worth your time if you can give it.