Back catalogue: Techno (All)

Review: With a name like Global Underground, we're left starry-eyed at a fanciful idea: a vast, interconnected network of tunnels, reticulating every nightclub in the world. Who wouldn't want that? While the possibility of such a thing is most likely inexistent in our human lifetimes, the eponymous international record label at least aim to make a "global underground" real in spirit with their City Series of mixes. Their latest full-length from Montreal native Joseph Capriati captures this fervent mood: with the initiate DJ repping the jubilant Canadian city, the mix segues between Ame, Len Faki, Deetron and Louie Vega highlights, and is a modern house and techno showstopper.

Review: All-round powerhouse Ransom Note - label, promoter and publication - are veterans on the scene, having promoted nearly every facet of the dance music scene since the early 2010s. This new compilation hears the Ransom Note core outfit team up with Richard Sen, an equally battle-scarred DJ and producer active since the late 80s. The project is Sen's tribute to the UK rave scene of the early 1990s, featuring rare and obscure tracks by artists not normally cited among nostalgists: Centuras, Bandulu, Strontium 90, Orr-Some, Biff'um Baff'um Boys, Epoch 90, Mind Over Rhythm, Dream Frequency, As One and UVX. Techno, house, breakbeat, acid and hardcore collide to synthesise a sonic zeitgeist, which occupied a brief but spectacular four-year period in dance music's early golden decade.

Review: Music From Memory share the CD edition (there's also a vinyl release) of their latest in a series of compilations, which focuses on the tide of new ambient and minimalist electronica which came about at the turn of the millennium, Virtual Dreams. Whilst the first volume focused on the techno and electronica musics emergent in Europe in 1993-99, Virtual Dreams Vol. 2 homes in on Japan during the same period, tracking the regional, geosonic differences between each global cultural centre. Tracing a fibrous thread, that began to weave itself of its own accord, out from the early 90s acid house FOMO experienced in Japan's early days, through to its restful response with the dawn of "listening techno" proffered by the likes of Sublime Records, Syzygy Records and Frogman Records, many of the tracks featured therein cull their choices from not only these leading lights but also the odd and not-so-odd rarity, helping usher in a truer representation of the era.

Review: Those who enjoy the more intense, mind-mangling end of techno (particularly the trance-tinged, big room-ready European variants) should check out this three-disc mix-up on ZYX. Felix Reichwelt handles disc one, surging through tracks from the likes of Uncertain (the warehouse-ready excellence of 'Whack'), Thomas Schumacher (the acid-fired Jam & Spoon revivalism of 'Come Closer') and Spartaque (the fiendishly brutal 'Exhausted'), before SLT and Schwarze Puppen take over on disc two with a mix tailor made for massive venues with enormous soundsystems, minimal lighting, and thousands of wild ravers reaching for the strobes. NK4!D handles the third and final disc, offering a fine balance between riffs, melodies, intense acid lines and thunderous techno beats.