Nick Curly

The Sound of Mannheim, written in house

When the German scene started talking about the Sound of Mannheim, Nick Curly's sessions were already at the center of that conversation: house with a long pulse, hypnotic basslines, and a DJ booth that didn't accept the rigid border between house and techno. He grew up in Mannheim, bought his first vinyl records at fifteen, and mixed tapes at home until one of them reached the Vibration Club. That's where he started DJing; later came residencies at the Loft Club in Ludwigshafen, the Soho Club, and the Envy-My Music parties by Cocoon in Frankfurt. He had been interested in the keyboard since he was nine; the DJ craft, since that adolescence glued to the turntable.

8bit, Cécille and the discipline of the precise cut

In 2004 he released his first EP, Craving, on Amused 8bit. In 2006 he reconverted the project into 8bit Records together with Gorge. A year later he founded Cécille Records with Marc Scholl. Both labels became home to artists like Butch, Toman, Harry Romero, or Josh Butler, and the laboratory where Curly refined a catalog full of groove, functional and uninterested in trends. Before living off music, he worked at Daimler; it was above all the Cécille tracks, installed in the record bags of DJs all over the world, that pushed him to dedicate himself entirely to the studio and the dancefloor.

Kehakuma, Space and the map of the great dancefloors

Since 2009 he has been a regular presence in the Ibiza summers. In 2010 he was a resident at the legendary Space and, later, at the Kehakuma nights at the same club, today Hï Ibiza. That same year Cocoon commissioned him, together with Marco Carola, the mixed compilation Party Animals. He has played at Time Warp, Sonus Festival, Awakenings, SonneMondSterne, Fabric in London, and Watergate in Berlin, and his schedule continues to cover more than a hundred dates a year, from intimate clubs to open-air stages. The EP We Luv (Cécille, 2025) was born from that Ibizan memory: the recollection of We Love Sundays at Space, translated into organic percussion and a smiling groove.

Between The Lines and the house that doesn't expire

His debut Between The Lines (Cécille, 2012), reissued in an expanded version by Defected, showed a more organic side: real instruments, vocals, and cuts like Piano In The Dark or Underground, the latter with a remix by Dennis Ferrer that became a dancefloor standard. In 2014 he signed the compilation In The House for Defected. The rhythm hasn't stopped: YOU and Come Right Back in 2024, Stay High on 8bit, We Luv on Cécille, and, already in 2026, Switching Levels and Bahia. Today he remains at the helm of Cécille and 8bit and maintains the same criteria as always: he only releases what he finds special, a timeless house music designed so the dancefloor doesn't stop.