Back catalogue: Techno (All)

Review: ***B-STOCK: Case slightly cracked, product in perfect working order***


Past Inside The Present welcomes back accomplished and prolific ambient master zake, this time alongside Oss and Fax who released the original featured track, 'Polymorph' on Module. Here it gets revisited by a top contemporary team after the hazy and absorbing extended mix kicks things off. ASC then goes dark with his mood rework and Zake himself remixes with a more optimistic sense of crepuscular synth lushness. Aural Imbalance layers in some fizzing and malfunctioning electronic sounds, Ossa suspends you amongst his heavenly rays and Influx brings gently broken beats. Fax shuts down this varied offering with a more edgy ambient sound.

Review: Past Inside The Present welcomes back accomplished and prolific ambient master zake, this time alongside Oss and Fax who released the original featured track, 'Polymorph' on Module. Here it gets revisited by a top contemporary team after the hazy and absorbing extended mix kicks things off. ASC then goes dark with his mood rework and Zake himself remixes with a more optimistic sense of crepuscular synth lushness. Aural Imbalance layers in some fizzing and malfunctioning electronic sounds, Ossa suspends you amongst his heavenly rays and Influx brings gently broken beats. Fax shuts down this varied offering with a more edgy ambient sound.

Review: Earlier this year, A Guy Called Gerald (Gerald Simpson) made his Laboratory Instinct debut with a "Drop-Tech Infusion" mix of Dell & Flügel's "Superstructure" that appeared on the duo's "Study For A Skyscraper" EP. Now the British acid house pioneer and drum'n'bass legend issues his own superb full-length on the German imprint, the appropriately-titled "Proto Acid - The Berlin Sessions". Having literally influenced generations of music-makers with an incredible discography that's grown incrementally deeper since the 80s, the Manchester UK native and now Berlin resident executes the infectious 71-minute jam with a masterful meticulousness. Drenching Detroit-styled techno in sparkling electro, the set, recorded live in one session using two laptops and a DJ mixer at Gerald's Diehold Studio on February 11th, 2006, flows with a relaxed ease. With one exception ("Auto Rebuild," the third track, is a remake of 1990's "Automannik"), the album's 24 raw, club-oriented tracks are all new and were created over the last year in Berlin. The collection departs from the style of his last full-length, "To All Things What They Need", in many ways, the most obvious being the absence of singing. Asked why he decided to make "Proto Acid - The Berlin Sessions" wholly instrumental, Simpson doesn't mince words. "On my last two albums, I felt pressured to include vocals," he replies. "Nowadays, I feel singers should be put on a bale of hay with a piece of straw hanging out of their mouths while playing acoustic guitar-keeping it real, if you know what I mean. I want to make music for clubs and sometimes you just have to get down and dirty into the machines and, to take it there, you can't hold anyone's hand. Some things just don't need a vocal. What I'm trying to do is keep myself entertained as well as give the punters something new." Asked to describe the album's sound, Simpson says, "To me it's proto acid; it's how I feel house/techno music would have sounded if the whole rave thing hadn't happened in England. When I was younger, I would go to soul and funk clubs and you could easily mix a techno/house track into your set without spoiling the environment. Could you imagine playing a techno track at an r'n'b club today? Things have splintered and fragmented and floated so far apart that funk seems to have dropped through the cracks. I'm one of those preserved creatures that basically loves to use genres as a palette. So when I say proto acid I'm saying this stuff has direct lineage to Chicago and Detroit in the mid-to-late 80s." Don't think that, for Simpson, acid's definition is limited to something as obvious as the 303 either. "I find it really interesting how the TB303 has come to be fetishised as an acid machine," he says. "For me, acid was all about the tweaking of synths and riding a groove, you know what I mean? Like, before the masses thought the Transistor Bass machine was a special tool for doing acid house music, I was already bored with it and had moved on to tweaking envelopes on other Roland machinery, so I never really possessed that value for the 303 like everybody else did. I feel like I followed my own path and was inspired by what was going on in Detroit and Chicago but always did my own thing. To me, the new album is acid and acid's a part of everything I do." On the disc itself, Simpson doesn't waste a moment but immediately invigorates the set with the pumping tribal groove of "Marching Powder" before moving on to the steely funk-throb of "The Strip." The mix's strutting electro strain makes its first appearance in "Auto Rebuild" and dominates thereafter, though its presence is subtly modulated from one cut to the next, at one moment oozing a house vibe and the next techno. While differences distinguish one track from the next (though Simpson avows that his influences are more machines than particular artists, a seeming Drexciya influence emerges in "Droid" and the dark synth-driven "Feel the Heat" while dub rears its head in "Xray" and "Bass-o-train", there's clearly a unified feel to the album. "Skitzoid" casts a mechano spell, "Night Flight" breezily rocks, and the jacking cut "Voltar" broils feverishly for almost eight minutes. Bringing the mix to a chilled close, "Sweet You" floats in a billowing haze of jazzy pianos and locomotive drum brushes before vaporizing in a cloud of cymbal accents. At this stage in his career, one might assume that Simpson has covered every base imaginable, but apparently that's not so. Referring to the new release, he says, "It's the culmination of a dream I've had since I started making music, and that's to take the studio into the club; this album is snapshot of those possibilities."

Review: When Bristolian man-of-mystery A Sagittariun released his debut album, Dream Ritual, back in 2013, there was a brilliant freshness to his '90s inspired intelligent techno sound. Since then, many others have mined similar inspirations, but few can match the authenticity of his sound. Elasticity, his sophomore set, widens his palette of influences further, via nods to blissful ambient house, trippy interludes (complete with spoken word samples from famous psychedelic thinkers), Drexciyan electro, the guitar-laden atmospherics of Jonny Nash, and, most surprising of all, classic UK garage. It's a fine set, all told, and one that reveals greater details with each successive listen.

Review: Echospace member Rod Modell's latest solo work has been trailed as a "generative-music composition" aimed at sound tracking the shift from waking consciousness to deep sleep. Modell does this by combining his usual dub techno inspired sonic textures, with a battery of barely audible voices that flit in and out of the mix. All of this, fused with additional field recordings and sleepy electronics, results in an extended piece that's both calming and, if you listen to it intently enough (which, to be honest, isn't the idea), really rather odd. As ambient works go, though, it's quietly impressive.

Review: After the well received Cult Copy album, which was released on CD/DVD earlier this year, it was decided to release a limited press of 1000 copies on vinyl, as a lot of requests were received for this format. Most of the Cult Copy related vinyl is deleted or currently out of stock, so this album makes all tracks available on vinyl again. It will be released as a gatefold 2xLP of which 500 units come with the DVD which is also available with the CD. This DVD contains a 25 minute video by video artist Michael Butink which compliments the music perfectly.

Review: Modular synthesizer fetishist Luke Abbott apparently got the inspiration for this sophomore set during time spent as the "musician in residence" at the Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire back in 2012. Named after a piece of woodland close by, it sees Abbott using live analogue electronics to try and create a "natural life cycle" over the album's nine tracks. Interestingly, it differs from his impressive debut album in a number of ways; while Holkham Drones touched on krautrock, drone and intense ambience, Wysing Forest doffs a cap to spiritual jazz, Terry Riley and ambient explorer Pete Namlook. It's a beguiling set, all told, and one that constantly veers between crunchy bursts of intense IDM and becalmed, breathtaking ambience.

Review: For the uninitiated, Nordstern is arguably Switzerland's most name-checked underground club. This year, the Basel institution turns 15. To celebrate, they've asked Israeli techno titan Shlomi Aber to put together this anniversary mix CD. Happily, the Cocoon, Cadenza and Renaissance regular has done a fine job, laying down a dark, atmospheric, dancefloor-friendly mix that would no doubt go down a treat at Nordstern. There are few surprises, but plenty of murky, evocative, armour-played techno treats, from the angular funk of Wire's "Contrast" and rolling rave stabs of DJ Hyperactive's "Venus" (as remixed by Truncate), to the woozy, glassy-eyed positivity of Entro Senestre's "DOHC".

Review: It took Abstraxion producer Harold Boue almost decade to get around to delivering his 2013 debut album, Break of Lights. This sophomore set, then, just took a mere three years to gestate. It's an impressive follow-up, all told, with the Marseilles man serving up a set that combines swelling, melancholic melodies and bittersweet tunefulness with occasional moments of quiet euphoria, yearning soundscapes, and softly spoken dancefloor rhythms. He occasionally sings, too, though his atmospheric and emotion-rich delivery is perfectly in keeping with the sumptuous late night mood. Nicholas Jaar is a big fan of his work, and it's easy to see why; Boue shares a similar aesthetic and approach to music making.

Review: The Cornish boy wonder Luke Vibert has spread his wings so brightly during the last decade as Kerrier District, Yoseph, Amen Andrews, Spac Hand Luke, Plug and of course Wagon Christ, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he's covered all the ground. Demented filthy disco, killer aquatic blue ambience, drill n' bass, breaking funk, library music, instrumental hip-hop and lethal acid styles. With only a rare promo 12" issued five years ago, the name Ace Of Clubs will probably mean nothing to the even the most obsessive Vibert geeks. Now the next chapter is here in the form of "Benefist".

Review: Having previously been responsible for a number of themed compilations for Versatile Records, the Acid Arab crew has finally got round to delivering its' first album of original productions. Naturally, it continues their theme of blending North African and Middle Eastern sounds - be it vocals or instruments - with drum machine rhythms and vintage synthesizer sounds. This, though, is where the similarities to their previous work end. While there are a few house-influenced cuts dotted throughout (see the brilliant "Sayarat 303"), for the most part Musique De France veers further towards off-kilter electronic pop. Along the way, they doff a collective cap to new wave, punk-funk, and hazy indie-pop. While it may lack the crackling energy of their more dancefloor-minded productions, it's still a hugely enjoyable set.

Review: Franco-Algerian collective Acid Arab has made some of the most inspired, inventive and original music of the last decade, initially by joining the dots between Arabic musical culture and machine-driven dance music, but latterly by incorporating nods to synth-pop, industrial, new beat and more. On 'Trois', their third album, they refocus on the dancefloor - albeit one open to sounds inspired by different sub-genres popular from the mid 1980s onwards - with predictably inspired results. For proof, check dense, hard-wired opener 'Leila (featuring Sofiane Sandi)', the pitch-black, punk-funk influenced techno throb of 'Ya Mahla (featuring Wael Alkak)', the mutant, sub-heavy North African acid-funk of 'Habaytak (featuring Ghizlane Meilh)' and the frankly mind-mangling brilliance of 'Rachid Trip (featuring Rachid Taha)'.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Box damaged, product unused & in perfect condition***

- Creasing/small tear to corner of sleeve

Having previously been responsible for a number of themed compilations for Versatile Records, the Acid Arab crew has finally got round to delivering its' first album of original productions. Naturally, it continues their theme of blending North African and Middle Eastern sounds - be it vocals or instruments - with drum machine rhythms and vintage synthesizer sounds. This, though, is where the similarities to their previous work end. While there are a few house-influenced cuts dotted throughout (see the brilliant "Sayarat 303"), for the most part Musique De France veers further towards off-kilter electronic pop. Along the way, they doff a collective cap to new wave, punk-funk, and hazy indie-pop. While it may lack the crackling energy of their more dancefloor-minded productions, it's still a hugely enjoyable set.

Review: Before Roman Flugel and Jorn Elling Wuttke found fame as Alter Ego, they spent much of the '90s releasing heavyweight club cuts as Acid Jesus. For those who missed their releases first time around (or were simply too young), Flashbacks 1992-1998 does a good job in telling the story. It gathers together the best of their released material with a few previously unheard bits thrown in. As the name suggests, the TB-303 was a regular presence in much of the duo's work at this time and you'll find house and techno jack-tracks throughout. Thrillingly, though, the set also contains cuts that are closer in tone to both Underground Resistance and early UK bleep techno than the wild and aggressive techno jams that Flugel and Wuttke would later become famous for.

Review: "It's like painting with button and sliders... Melting and dripping, seeping yourself liquid into the machinery." So said Darren Cunningham when discussing the creation of R.I.P, his long awaited follow up to Splazsh. It's a compelling image that works in practice too. R.I.P creates microcosmic sound worlds within each track: "Holy Water" for instance tumbles in on itself in a melange of shimmering sine wave droplets, while the pitch shifted waves of "Tree Of Knowledge" seem to inhale and exhale like a living being, crumpling inwards on itself to repeat the same motion ad infinitum. And although it uses much the same, occasionally abrasive sonic building blocks as Cunningham's been developing for many years, the pastoral tones of "Uriel's Black Harp" and the Alva Noto styles of "Jardin" make R.I.P a surprisingly graceful album. It may not be techno as many will know it, but Cunningham has never made techno in the traditional sense anyway - and it's clear on listening to R.I.P that he's only just beginning to realise the musical forms that have been swarming inside his brain for years.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Box damaged, product unused & in perfect condition***

- Creasing to corner of sleeve

"It's like painting with button and sliders... Melting and dripping, seeping yourself liquid into the machinery." So said Darren Cunningham when discussing the creation of R.I.P, his long awaited follow up to Splazsh. It's a compelling image that works in practice too. R.I.P creates microcosmic sound worlds within each track: "Holy Water" for instance tumbles in on itself in a melange of shimmering sine wave droplets, while the pitch shifted waves of "Tree Of Knowledge" seem to inhale and exhale like a living being, crumpling inwards on itself to repeat the same motion ad infinitum. And although it uses much the same, occasionally abrasive sonic building blocks as Cunningham's been developing for many years, the pastoral tones of "Uriel's Black Harp" and the Alva Noto styles of "Jardin" make R.I.P a surprisingly graceful album. It may not be techno as many will know it, but Cunningham has never made techno in the traditional sense anyway - and it's clear on listening to R.I.P that he's only just beginning to realise the musical forms that have been swarming inside his brain for years.