Adam Ten 'I Never Knew': Tech House's Biggest Track of July 2026

Adam Ten's "I Never Knew" has hit number one on the Beatport Tech House Top 100 for July 2026. The track was released on June 5 via Defected, runs 4 minutes 59 seconds at 125 BPM in D minor, and is built around a rework of Faith Evans' "Love Like This." It has received support from Pete Tong, Joel Corry, Armin van Buuren, CID, Prospa, and Leandro Da Silva. For a Tel Aviv producer who started in psytrance and spent years building credibility through Diynamic, Crosstown Rebels, and Hot Creations before landing on Defected, this is a significant chart moment — and the track itself is worth unpacking.

Who Is Adam Ten?

Adam Ten is an Israeli DJ and producer whose trajectory through the scene reads as a case study in slow, deliberate career building. He started playing around age 18 in Israel's underground psytrance circuit before evolving toward groovier, more minimal material — a transition that eventually led to releases on Diynamic, one of the more demanding gatekeeping labels in the deep and melodic house world. From there came Crosstown Rebels, Hot Creations, Higher Ground, and Defected. He runs his own imprint, Maccabi House, which leans into psychedelic and funky house territory. By 2021, two tracks from his Diynamic EP, "Lego" and "Rollercoaster TLV," were both top-10 on Beatport. He's been building toward a Beatport number one for some time.

The Source Material

Faith Evans' "Love Like This" is one of the more emotionally warm tracks to resurface in house edits in recent years — its melodic DNA has the kind of recognisable softness that works on a dancefloor when reworked correctly. Adam Ten's version doesn't obscure the original; it lifts what made it familiar and recasts it into something that sits comfortably in the 125 BPM tech house range. The approach is closer to a sophisticated edit than an aggressive overhaul — the source material's emotional core survives, now carried on a stripped-back, punchy kick and hi-hat pattern that reads as peak-time without being aggressive about it.

What the Track Does Well

At D minor and 125 BPM, "I Never Knew" occupies a tempo range that's slightly more restrained than the harder end of tech house but still entirely floor-ready. The production choices reflect what's become Adam Ten's signature: a groove that relies on swing rather than velocity, with enough space in the low-end to let a dancefloor breathe. The sample is deployed with discipline — it arrives at the right moments and doesn't overstay its welcome. The extended mix gives DJs enough clean intro and outro to work with, which partly explains the support it's getting across a wide range of DJ styles, from the festival-scale sets of Armin van Buuren to the more underground-leaning slots of Prospa and CID.

The Defected stamp matters here too. The London label has been the home of house music institution-building for nearly three decades, and landing a number-one on the Beatport Tech House chart via Defected in July 2026 is a different kind of endorsement than charting through a smaller or more genre-specific outlet. The label's reach means the track is getting ears it wouldn't otherwise find.

Context: July's Tech House Chart

The rest of the Beatport Tech House Top 100 for July 2026 gives a clear picture of where the genre currently sits. Dale Howard's "On Lock," Layton Giordani and Patrick Topping's "Tonight" on MADMINDS, and tracks from Fezzo and Dubdogz all chart alongside "I Never Knew" in the top tier. The landscape is varied: some tracks push BPMs harder, some lean more melodic. What "I Never Knew" does is occupy the middle ground — recognisable, groove-forward, and approachable without being diluted. That's a difficult balance in a genre that can tip easily toward either formula or inaccessibility.

What It Means

For Adam Ten, a Beatport Tech House number one via Defected positions him differently than the Diynamic and Crosstown Rebels material that made his name. Those releases spoke primarily to a melodic and minimal-leaning audience. A tech house chart-topper, supported by a broad coalition of DJs, opens the door to a more mainstream festival circuit without requiring him to abandon what he's built. That's the kind of chart position that changes an artist's booking tier, not just their streaming numbers.

"I Never Knew" is available now on Defected Records across all major platforms. Adam Ten's catalogue, including his Maccabi House releases, is available on Beatport and Traxsource.