Luke Andy has spent the past few years turning a self-taught habit into one of the more dependable names in American house music, and ‘Uniq’ is a neat reminder of why. The Los Angeles based producer heads back to Groove Motive, the label he founded and runs himself, with a single that trades spectacle for feel. Everything here is built around movement: a rolling, low-slung groove, percussion stripped back to only what the track actually needs, and a bassline that keeps nudging the whole thing forward without ever raising its voice. It is the kind of record that does its best work in the small hours, once a room has settled into a rhythm and simply wants to stay there.
The restraint is the point. Rather than stacking layers, Luke Andy leaves air between the drums and lets the swing carry the weight, dropping in clipped vocal fragments and filtered stabs at exactly the moment the loop starts to feel familiar. It lands squarely in that minimal and deep tech territory where tension is built through repetition and small shifts rather than big drops, and where the payoff comes from the groove locking in rather than breaking apart. Released as a standalone single in an extended mix made for the floor, ‘Uniq’ is a DJ tool first, designed to be mixed long and ridden out.
Luke Andy’s route here has been anything but conventional. He was making rap beats before a trip to Moonrise Festival at eighteen redirected him toward house, and he taught himself the rest from there. A track picked up and played out by Claude VonStroke opened the door to Dirtybird, with releases on Repopulate Mars and Desert Hearts following soon after, alongside support from the likes of Jamie Jones. He has since taken the sound to EDC and Dirtybird Campout, and to rooms such as Spybar in Chicago and Sound in Los Angeles, where his sets lean on precisely the sort of grooves ‘Uniq’ is made of.
Groove Motive is where all of that now lives. Launched at the start of 2025, the imprint was built as an artist-driven home focused on community as much as catalogue, and its opening release ‘My Side’ with Sophiegrophy set the tone with driving basslines, stripped-back drums and a soulful streak running underneath. Since then the label has grown into a steady run of records from names including Ardalan, Antss, ALVES (US) and Jay Mariani, and with ‘Uniq’ arriving as catalogue number GM018 it continues to look like one of the more focused independent operations coming out of Los Angeles right now.
You can now listen to the full premiere of ‘Uniq’ exclusively on When We Dip Radio. Enjoy!
Release Date: September 4th, 2026. Buy Here
Luke Andy: Instagram / SoundCloud
Groove Motive: Instagram / SoundCloud