Some house records arrive already shouting. D1RT TH13F’s “Hold On” does the opposite. It walks in quiet, finds the pocket, and stays there long enough that you stop waiting for the big moment and start living inside the groove.
That is a rare move in 2026, when melodic house and deep house keep getting pulled toward bigger rooms and bigger statements. Plenty of that music is working. A lot of it is also crowded. “Hold On” is interested in space. Sparse percussion, understated keys, an ethereal vocal, and a punchy low end that actually belongs on a system. Deep house territory, but with the patience of someone who still thinks like a songwriter.
D1RT TH13F is the new electronic project of Nico Allard: songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist. Belfast-born, later based in Portland, now working out of Mexico City. Before this alias he spent more than two decades making records across indie rock, folk, pop and soundtrack work. That history matters, because he is not pretending to have grown up only on club 12-inches. He is approaching dance music from outside its usual rulebook and keeping the parts that still feel like songs.
You hear that in the arrangement. The percussion does not fill every gap. Melodic details stay small on purpose. The bass is what gives the track its body, so the rest of the record can stay hypnotic instead of busy. Allard has talked about wanting the groove and the vocal to carry most of the weight, and about becoming more interested in how little you can get away with than how much you can stack. That restraint is the point. It is also why the track sits so comfortably between deep house and melodic house without sounding like a genre checklist.
The influences he names are wide: West African music, Latin rhythms, post-punk, ambient, classic songwriting. Mexico City is in the picture too, not as a costume but as a noisy, overlapping city where music leaks out of shops, cars and clubs. Allard is careful not to claim he is suddenly making “Mexican” music. Fair. What comes through instead is a looser sense of rhythm and atmosphere, and a project built for movement without giving up melody or emotional weight.
That mix is timely. House in 2026 is still hungry for percussion, global rhythm and tracks that can live in a DJ set without losing a human center. Melodic house keeps filling late-night rooms. Deep house keeps rewarding records that roll instead of explode. “Hold On” belongs in that conversation because it treats the club as a place for feeling, not just function. Cinematic without getting precious. Physical without getting blunt.
If you only know Allard from earlier song-based work, this is the interesting part: D1RT TH13F is not a hard reset so much as a new frame. Same instincts, different room. Music built to move bodies, still rooted in atmosphere and a vocal you can actually hold onto.
What do you think of this artist’s sound? Does “Hold On” hit more as a headphone record or a floor record for you? Let me know in the comments.
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