Sammy Virji Drops ‘Open Late’ at ADE: Eight Tracks Built for the After-Hours Circuit

Amsterdam Dance Event has become the annual pressure valve for artists sitting on finished music they want to drop at peak cultural velocity. Sammy Virji used it to maximum effect on Tuesday — releasing his second album, Open Late, almost entirely without warning during a live George FM Drive interview on October 21.

Eight Tracks, No Announcement, No Waiting

The album arrived as a surprise, announced and dropped within hours of each other. Open Late contains eight tracks and follows Same Day Cleaning, Virji’s 2025 debut long-player. Where that record mapped out his breakout moment — the period when his Shy Guy edit blew up and his calendar went from regional bookings to international festival slots — this one is explicitly about the club itself.

“The whole idea of the album is that it’s a journey through what it’s like to be at the club when I’m playing,” Virji told George FM. The track sequencing reflects that: an arc that begins with arrival energy and pushes through into the kind of tunnel-vision late-night space that UK house has been quietly perfecting for years.

Collaborators and Featured Artists

Three featured artists appear across the album. Joy Anonymous, the New York-based collective whose soulful house productions have been appearing on labels like Wolf Music and Shall Not Fade, brings warmth and emotional heft to their collaboration. Wet — a vocalist with a growing profile in the UK bass and house crossover space — and Hans Glader complete the guest roster.

The production palette throughout is dancefloor-functional but not reductive. Virji has consistently resisted the pull toward the more stripped, tech-house sound that has dominated festival main stages over the past few years. Open Late sounds like a record made by someone who still experiences clubs as listener as much as performer — attentive to texture, to the relationship between groove and space.

ADE Sets: The Loft and Gashouder

Two ADE appearances are lined up in direct support of the album. On October 23, Virji plays b2b with Mochakk at The Loft — a combination that puts two of the most in-demand acts in the current house circuit together in one of ADE’s most historically significant rooms. The Loft Amsterdam has become the event’s default venue for extended, deep-listening sets, and this pairing is one of the most anticipated bills of this year’s conference.

On October 24, he headlines a ‘Sammy Virji Curates’ set at Gashouder — the industrial Amsterdam venue that has hosted some of the most significant ADE events of the past decade. A curated billing means Virji has input on the supporting acts, extending the album’s emotional logic into the room’s full arc.

The After-Hours Market in 2026

Virji’s timing is sharp. The after-hours circuit — late-night, weeknight events with longer sets and more adventurous programming — has expanded significantly across UK and European cities over the past two years, partly as a reaction to the mainstreaming of the festival circuit. Open Late names that space directly and stakes out a position within it.

For artists who built their followings through residencies, extended sets, and a genuine connection to the underground, that market represents a kind of homecoming. Virji has enough crossover profile to play either side of the fence; this album makes clear which side he’s choosing to document.

The album is out now across all major streaming platforms.

Source: DJ Mag