If you love something, they say, set it free. Even dance music. It’s only five years, after all, since Hot Since 82, current hottest property in house music, the man behind some of Summer 2013’s biggest anthems, gave up DJing and producing forever. Back in summer 2007, Daley Padley was staying with his mates in a villa in Ibiza, playing regularly at Amnesia for Cream and basically living every young DJ’s dream. There was just one little problem. “I didn't like that music anymore,” remembers Daley, half smiling, half grimacing, “I actually hated it.” Born and raised on Athersley South council estate in Barnsley, Daley was pretty much schooled for DJ success from birth. Growing up with four brothers and sisters meant an eclectic barrage of different genres in every room of the house. His dad also helped prepare Daley for house music stardom (or at least a high tolerance for punishing bass), inviting Daley to spend weekends at his workshop where he refurbishes VW Beetles… and fits them with monster sound systems. “Me and my brother always wanted to be in the garage, blasting out the music.” His formal DJ education started at 17, playing 12-13 hour sets each Sunday at a club in his hometown – with queues round the block, as his residency soon became the number one afterparty destination for clubbers from far and wide. “I’d have four crates of records and I’d never play the same one twice.” As word got around, the next stop was a 2006 residency at Cream Ibiza in Amnesia under the banner of Leeds club Glasshouse. But while his love for Ibiza never wavered, the difference between the sounds he was being asked to play and what he really enjoyed was becoming impossible to bridge. “2003 was the first time I went to DC10,” he remembers, “by 2007 I had really got into a more underground sound.” His heart no longer in the music he had made his reputation playing, Daley stopped producing and stopped DJing. Thankfully for house music lovers everywhere, it didn’t last. In 2010 he “walked into the city centre of Leeds and just started going raving again. Good quality house music was back!” And it was a night out that got him back in the game. “I went to Ibiza with the lads that summer, and we were at an afterparty and when the music stopped I put my iPhone in and a record I had made came on. It had just been lying on my hard drive for a couple of months - I hadn’t made it to release, or to start DJing again.” The response on that night convinced him to try to release it, and he contacted his friend Danish DJ/Producer Noir, coincidentally, another of 2013’s brightest stars. ‘Let It Ride’ came out on Noir Music on September 5, 2011. It hit number three on the deep house chart just as the new style of bass-heavy, garage-influenced ‘deep house’ was exploding. Hot Since 82 was born. Since then tunes ‘Knee Deep In Louise’, ‘Like You’ and ‘Houz Thiz’, on labels as diverse as Get Physical and Moda Black, remixes for Green Velvet (‘Bigger Than Prince’ Ibiza Anthem & Beatport No.1), Rudimental (‘Right Here’ Pete Tong’s Essential New Tune) and Yousef (‘Beg’) – as well as his incredible first installment in Moda Black’s ‘ Little Black Book’ compilation / album series have established him as someone with an appeal across the board. Meanwhile, an Essential Mix and gigs at Richie Hawtin’s Enter in Ibiza, Footwork in Toronto, Watergate in Berlin, Warung in Brazil, We Love and Fabric, just in the past 12 months prove he’s one of the hottest DJ talents around. With ‘Little Black Book’ the perfect showcase for his talents as a DJ and producer, and an upcoming tour of North America (taking in clubs from Output in NYC, Spy Bar in Chicago, Sound in LA to Space in Miami) the softly spoken Yorkshireman with a mischievous grin is only getting hotter. And having given it all up once before, he’s vowed to never turn his back on house music again. “If I wasn’t doing this here” he confides between mixes on the Space Terrace, “I’d be doing it in my living room at home.” If it returns, it’s yours forever.