Tresor Germany Vinilo y CD

Review: Brunson marks a shift away from his earlier work under the name Acid Jakal, and eases further into his penchant for modular techno experiments. In a roundabout way, his music is influenced by the writings of various psychedelic and bohemian movement pushers such as Timothy Leary; and the result? An empathic hybrid techno powerhouse of an EP, which urges us to love our friends through pulsing beats and raw tops.

Review: For the legendary label Tresor to put out a breakbeat record is something very rare. The ardent techno label for over 30 years is clearly telling us without saying, how good this music is. Tresor is always in touch with rave music though and it's not fully surprising that Tresor would support any music that is so reminiscent of the old skool days like Digital Entropy is. Datashader rises from the depths to give us their wicked debut. The EP is an audio onslaught that combines blistering breakbeat gems like 'Velocity 04.22' with eerie sci-fi pieces like 'Sync Out Off'. The AFX like 'Fong' and 'Sub Osc" are early favorites from those who have heard samples of this haunting record. It is rare to see the power of rave, breakbeat and IDM presented this well on one record.

Review: Angela and Daniele are an Italian pair from Naples who work together as Fireground. They turned heads from their first EP Dualism on Tresor in 2021 and have remained with the label since. It is there that they return with what is presumably a new series, Refreshing Part, as this is installment one. They have a frantic and frantic techno sounds rooted in the 90s school of box banging. 'Never Sleep' opens on that manic tip before 'Gaze' is a little more stripped back but no less potent. Elsewhere the caustic textures of 'Into A Diamond' are almost enough make your eyes water.

Review: In recent years, the producer, label head and DJ Kerrie Anderson has been gaining attention for her powerful and riveting techno sounds. The 'Machine Alliance' 12" offers four heavy and classically-fashioned techno tracks, with the title track an intense all-out energy full of tension and sensory overload. 'Symbiosis' is a heavily chord driven banger while keeping things on a sinister level and the Surgeon-like 'Technology Dream' a dark and unstoppable builder. Lastly, 'Ode To The D' is the ideal piece of futurism that is worthy of the Detroit name. For those who like their techno sci-fi as hard as it is banging, this EP should be right in your wheelhouse.

Review: Since opting to release more music under his given name, DeepChord man Rod Modell has largely stuck to dubbed-out ambience and heady drone soundscapes. His latest full-length is a little different, though, offering up club-focused cuts that mix his usual fuzzy aural textures and dub-fired motifs with up-tempo techno rhythms. By his standards, it's a very forthright set, with highlights including the noise-soaked stomp of "Reiki", the thrusting heaviness of "ITO", the hypnotic slam of "Jade" - where breezy, early morning electronics flutter away above tough drums and a mind-altering bassline - and the boisterous peak-time techno anthem "Scrawler".

Review: Legendary Berlin techno label Tresor welcome Oscean for a standout debut EP. Oscean is a collaboration between Argentinian scene-leaders Sebastian Galante, also known as Seph, and Andres Zacco. They bring a propulsive sound and dense arrangements across the four cuts. Each one moves fast, with 'Feral' having scraping textures and rubbery drums racing onwards, 'Spacion' riding on a supple drum line that bubbles and boils and as a searching synth pans about the mix and 'Austraal' ends in Millsian style with electronic funk buried deep in its bones. It is the scuffed up broken beats of opener 'Spiral' that wins us over the most, though.

Review: Argentina's Oscean land on Tresor with their latest effort 'Chromium Radiance', a quartet of sonorous, slowly orbiting tracks for the outer reaches. The EP feels deeply at home on Tresor, whose back catalogue it effortlessly channels while navigating the newer more elastic pathways in techno laid by artists such as Mark Fell & Gabor Lazar. The first track is a pensive, nervous sketch for the more introspective hours of the morning, with reese-like pads hanging heavy over skittering grooves, while the second, 'Neon Harmonies' is a perfect accompaniment to watching rain cascade down neon-lit panes, with heartstring-plucking pads and propulsive, SVN-esque subs. 'Blaster Imploder' throws it back with a spell of ruthless hydraulic electro jakk, before 'Echoes Of Chaos' closes things out with a twitchy, haywire big room techno energy calling to mind Regis' early slammers. Seriously versatile and entertaining EP!

Notes: The Drexciyan Empire presents A Drexicyan Duo Story (Featuring The Brothers Bounce) - 'Mayhem in Mu!!'

New Drexciya comic from AbuQadim Haqq

Please note: this is a comic rather than a graphic novel

Review: Back in 2001, short lived Tresor Berlin sublabel Supremat released Mind Over Positive & Negative Dimensional Matter by Drexciya co-founder James Stinson under his Transllusion moniker. This much needed reissue features all three original tracks. There's the murky electro funk of 'Disrupted Neural Gateway', the minimalist beat dystopia of 'Do You Want To Get Down?' and more ghosts in the machine conjured up on B-side offering 'Power Of The 3rd Brain'. 2022 marked the 20th anniversary of Stinson's untimely passing.

Review: Tresor is a titanic techno brand that has very much had a large say in how the genre has sounded over the last few decades. The German club and label now welcomes Parisian artist UFO95 into the fold with his Backward Improvement EP which draws on elements of all the genre's many niches from London to Detroit to Berlin. 'Cogitor' is thumping and wried up with warped lines, 'Sexual Tension' has a more seductive sound with a rubbery and funky bassline and 'Fragment' then brings panel-beating loops for peak time showdowns. There is pure sci-fi atmosphere to the bells and the sonorous synths of 'Solar' and 'Gargk' closes down with a glitchy and ambient-laced breakbeat monster. Great variation makes this a useful EP.

Review: Mortiz Von Oswald continues to apply his considerable legacy to intriguing new ideas as he explores the differences and similarities between humans and machines on Silencio. For this new project, the Basic Channel pioneer has teamed up with Vocalconsort Berlin. The original framework of the album was composed and recorded on an array of synths and then transcribed to sheet music to be performed by Vocalconsort in a Kreuzberg church. By merging the source material and the resulting new recordings, Von Oswald and his collaborators present us with a compelling reflection on the tension between organic and electronic, cast in his distinctive style of hypnotic minimalism.

Review: Yazzus made a massive impression on us with her last outing in March last year on Mall Grab's Steel City Dance Discs label and now gets a suitable step up to the mighty Berlin techno label Tresor. She manages to lay down some bombastic and elastic rhythms on 'Human Error Processor' which has the kick drums pinging about the mix, before hammering a more searching and militant techno groove on 'Perforated.' There is sleazy and unrelenting energy to the chaotic percussion and synths of 'Metro City Bay Area' and that only gets turned up to 11 for the final outing, 'Three Deities'.