Notching up five years is a major feat for any independent label these days; the digital age may have made many things easier for musicians and label owners, but making money isn’t one of them.

Mention the label releases ‘underground house’ and the fact it survives five years becomes even more impressive, but impressive is a word regularly used to describe Jesse Rose and his Made To Play imprint. This fifth anniversary double disc compilation is no different and is a fine collection of cuts that have made the label one of the most consistent house imprints of recent years.

Indeed, Made To Play’s success can be seen as an example of how a label can make money; its 36 releases and several compilations are just the beginning. There’s Made To Play stickers, t-shirts and even pillow cases. Rose has turned his labour of love into a truly international operation comprising a management agency with offices in Berlin, London and, shortly, in LA.

Coupled with Rose’s own global club-hopping antics (which the Parklife tour saw not long ago), the label – which he runs alongside his already-lauded Front Room Recordings imprint – has taken on a life of its own, to the point that this compilation is as much a celebration of the last five years as a warning that we ain’t seen nothing yet.

But onto the compilation. Rose, who is British-born but has lived in Berlin for years, has been a vocal supporter of evolving house sub-genres like fidget throughout his career, and the influence his time in the German capital has had on Made To Play’s output is hard to ignore. It’s as if each track draws inspiration from his notorious Made To Play residency at Berlin’s Panorama Bar, where fresh is best and chin-strokers applaud adventurous – and at times weird – takes on classic house.

Many major Made To Play artists feature over disc one, a DJ-friendly unmixed collection of 10 new tracks and remixes that were put together solely for this fifth anniversary compilation. Rose and Riva Starr start things off with arguably the track of the compilation – Start The Weekend – which, with its disco hook and party-starting vibe sets the scene for other offerings by Round Table Knights, Oliver $ and Zombie Disco Squad. Rose and Riva Starr feature heavily throughout disc one, the latter for the fact his successful If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade LP was released earlier this year on Made To Play, the former for more obvious reasons.

Disc 2, a mix by Rose, is more retrospective than disc 1; Oliver $ opens the mix with Lost Arrival, before Riva Starr’s I Was Drunk drops, here given the remix treatment by Horatio and Katoline. Rose’s own Where Were You (Last Night) follows, before tracks and remixes by Cevin Fisher, Deepgroove and Jamie Anderson’s Idiotproof project and Round Table Knights raise the tempo.

Rose drops his own Non Stop Dub towards the end before we get a one-minute taste of Claude von Stroke’s remix of Magik Johnson’s Scanning For Viruses. Jan Driver’s Rat Alert follows before Riva Starr’s Tribute ends the mix with a dose of heavy synth goodness.

Included with the physical CD is a 48-page book charting the rise and rise of the label. Overall, this compilation will please fans of left-of-centre house; main room ‘heads may find it a little hard to swallow in places, but this is arguably Rose’s intention. Made To Play has sought to evolve the house genre and this five-year anniversary compilation does that nicely. Here’s to five more.

Re:play: Five Years Of Made To Play is out now on Made To Play.