Ninth in the canon of house: Defected has put Jabre’s ‘Swimming Places’ into the House Masters devoted to Purple Disco Machine

A classic by Julien Jabre is back in the Defected catalogue: on 20 February 2026 the label put out a new instalment of its House Masters series, and ‘Swimming Places’ sits ninth on it.

The Apple Music catalogue records it.

The edition is devoted to Purple Disco Machine, and Jabre’s track appears there in his re-work. The compilation holds nineteen entries in all.

What House Masters is

House Masters is the series with which Defected sums up a single name: it gathers that artist’s own tracks and their most important work for other people under one sleeve. Getting in means the label counts the work as part of the house canon.

The ‘Swimming Places’ re-work itself is not new: it came out on 8 March 2019 and landed the same day on the summer compilation ‘Defected Ibiza 2019’. Since then the track has kept turning up in the label’s mix series, from ‘Defected Radio’ to ‘Glitterbox’.

Behind the name Purple Disco Machine stands Tino Piontek, born in Dresden, who won a Grammy for best remix in 2023. He has five of his own pieces on the compilation: ‘My House’, ‘Street Life’, ‘Beat Fantasy (Extended Mix)’ and two joint tracks with Boris Dlugosch — ‘Set It Out’ and ‘L.O.V.E.’

Piontek has put his approach simply.

“I’m a great believer in staying true to the music that influenced you to start out in music in the first place and of keeping your core audience on side as you progress,” he said.

“I am definitely starting to spread my creative wings on my second album with more soulful and mid-tempo tracks as well as synth-pop, but I feel that these are evolutions from my sound, not revolutions.”

The remaining fourteen slots are his remixes and re-works of other people’s records. Among them are ‘Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)’ by Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor, ‘At Night’ by Shakedown, ‘Lola’s Theme Recut’ by The Shapeshifters, ‘Coma Cat’ by Tensnake, ‘Joys’ by Roberto Surace, ‘Do You Feel the Same?’ by Hercules & Love Affair, ‘All I Want’ by Boys Noize with Jake Shears, ‘A Simple Design’ by The Juan MacLean and ‘London Headache’ by Anabel Englund.

The original ‘Swimming Places’ appeared in the mid-2000s and quickly stopped belonging to its author: the record was played from Ibiza to basement clubs, and it is still recognisable from the first bars by that floating, almost underwater groove.

For Jabre this is a return to a series he has already been in. In 2009 Defected devoted a House Masters edition to him and DJ Gregory — a twenty-nine-track release.

As ONE//FM reported earlier, Jabre made a house version of a new Vanessa Paradis song for the deluxe edition of her album.