Ventura EP

DJOKO — the Cologne producer who also records under his own name, Kolter — returns to Shall Not Fade with Ventura, the hotly anticipated follow-up to 2020’s best-selling Hooked on the Bristol label. It’s a record that wears its influences with real confidence: five tracks of deep house and UK garage that sound equally at home in a dimly lit basement at 4am or a sun-drenched terrace set.

Opener Morning Wonders sets the tone with warm, dusted pads and a rolling bassline that locks in beneath shuffling percussion — proper heads-down deep house, unhurried and tactile, the kind of groove that invites you to sink into it rather than chase a peak. It’s a lovely record in its own right, but the remix that follows is where the EP really catches fire. Parisian producer Leo Pol takes Morning Wonders and swings it sideways into garage territory, the four-to-the-floor traded for a skippy, two-step rhythm and the pads chopped and re-sung over a bouncy sub. It’s the standout of the record — playful, propulsive and impossible not to move to, with a late breakdown that lands like pure, hands-in-the-air joy.

Title track Ventura returns to more straightforward house territory — a tight four-to-the-floor kick, rubbery bass and a shimmering chord motif that builds patiently, the arrangement breathing out just when it threatens to peak. Sylvestre Alone is the moodiest moment on the EP, all muted keys and eerie vocal stabs floating over a weighty groove, cloaked in reverb and haze. Closer Don’t Compare Yourself is the most garage-influenced original, a seven-and-a-half-minute roller with swung hats and a vocal snippet that feels like a mantra, riding its syncopation long past the point where lesser tracks would have run out of ideas.

There’s a restraint to Ventura that’s easy to underestimate — every track knows exactly what it is and gets there without fuss. DJOKO has quietly become one of the most reliable producers in the current house revival, and this EP is another confident statement from a label on a remarkable run.