French house never really left the floor. It just kept filtering, looping, and coming back with a grin. Lyon producer NAUX is one of the people keeping that lineage moving, and Freed Of U is the latest proof. It sits on his new True Lauve EP for HOUZ Records, a four-tracker built for funky, groovy disco house rather than empty peak-time flexing.
NAUX is Clément Hiernaux, a French house activist from Lyon who started as a jazz drummer before production took over in his teens. He came up around Touche Française with names like Folamour, then kept stacking releases on Arpège Record, Grand Cru Paris, theBasement Discos, and his own Naux Music. Resident Advisor still frames him as an independent artist orbiting Grand Cru Paris. Spotify lists him as a French house dude from Lyon with around 16,000 monthly listeners. Disco Rue remains the catalogue standout, and he has been supported by Disclosure, Kerri Chandler, Myd, Boston Bun, Salute, DJ Seinfeld, Cinthie and Kryptogram. He also runs a techno side project as Pleije and a live funk-house duo called FRR FONK. None of that is filler. It explains why Freed Of U feels like someone who knows both the sample culture of French touch and the physical job of making a room move.
Freed Of U itself is tagged Disco House on SubmitHub and listed on Beatport as House, 131 BPM, D-flat major, original mix, released 11 September 2026 with the rest of True Lauve. The other cuts on that EP are True Lauve, Games U Do and Faullin', all in the 128–132 BPM pocket. The pitch from camp is simple: a new EP with funky, groovy vibes that they think belongs on playlists. That matches the French house / disco house moment right now. Filter disco and nu-disco keep showing up in 2026 club lists next to Purple Disco Machine, Glitterbox, Defected and old-school French touch comps. DJs still want records that swing instead of just stomp.
Musically you are in classic disco-house territory: four-on-the-floor, bass that walks instead of just punching, and the kind of midrange bounce French producers have been chasing since the late-90s filter era. I am not going to invent vocal lines or lyric stories that were not sent. What is clear from the brief and the release data is intent. This is meant to sit next to funky house, jackin’ disco and those late-set records that make people stay on the floor instead of checking their phones. If you already know NAUX from Disco Rue, La Vida Locale on theBasement Discos, or the recent True Romance collabs with Josh Byrne, Freed Of U is the same family: sampled energy, French touch DNA, and a drummer’s sense of pocket.
That last part matters. A lot of disco house in 2026 is either overly polished or stuck in pastiche. NAUX’s path, from jazz kits to UCPA DJ school to a decade of Lyon rooms like Terminal Club, Le Sucre and Ninkasi, is the reason the groove does not feel pasted on. He has also been putting out 100% French Touch Mania volumes on his own imprint, which tells you he is still obsessed with the source material rather than just the aesthetic.
Independent house artists live and die on distribution now. Getting a track onto Spotify, Apple Music, Beatport and YouTube without giving away the store is the unglamorous half of the job. DistroKid is still one of the cleanest ways to do that, and you get 7% off membership here: https://distrokid.com/vip/seven/2058328. Keep more of the money, get the record onto the platforms DJs actually search, and spend the rest of the week finishing the next EP.
If you are already deep in disco house, French touch or that Lyon-to-Paris house pipeline, put Freed Of U on and see if the groove holds. What do you think of NAUX’s sound on this one? Drop it in the comments.
