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Zerothree is staking its reputation on Nihil Young's first album
Fifteen years of Zerothree being right about new talent is why Nihil Young's first album is landing on their catalogue, and not on someone else's.
Nihil Young's debut album, Compass, lands on Zerothree on 14 August — fifteen tracks, arriving fifteen years into a career built entirely on one-off tracks, remixes and other people's labels. That's a long runway to a first album, and it isn't landing here by accident. Zerothree built its name finding new producers through open demo submissions and getting them out before anyone else would, and it's been right often enough that its name on a release already reads as a credential in this corner of the genre. Handing Nihil Young his first album is Zerothree spending fifteen years of that judgment at once. We'd call the bet a safe one.
He's spent those fifteen years earning it the slow way. Mattia Marotta has released as Nihil Young and Less Hate across Toolroom, Purified, Odd One Out, Saved, Kittball and Vandit, without ever anchoring a catalogue to one home. A Zerothree rework of 1998 took Beatport's Progressive House chart to No. 1. A collaboration with Franky Wah, "How It Feels," carried the same run into Shén Recordings. He runs his own label, Frequenza, A&Rs its roster and hosts Dark To Light monthly on Frisky Deep. Fifteen years like that is what a pillar of this scene actually looks like on a résumé.
Compass carries that same reach into its tracklist. Fifteen tracks. A guest list to match: Jordan Arts, Lasada and a dozen more collaborators, running Progressive House up into Melodic House & Techno. The lead single, "A Feeling," got a co-sign from Ferry Corsten on A State of Trance before the album had even been confirmed. The second, "Just Be" with Lasada, followed once it was. Two singles. Two different rooms.
None of that on its own earns a debut album a headline this late in a career. What does: he didn't need to make one. Fifteen years without an album hadn't cost him the streams, the chart placements or the mastering credits for Sony, Warner and Universal. Compass is Nihil Young and Zerothree agreeing there's still a case for one anyway.