Juno Recommends Techno August 2018

Review: Skee Mask, who only recently was found out to be called Bryan Muller, comes through with his second LP to date, making a wonderful follow-up to 2016's Shred. Compro is, ironically, comprised of a much more explorative palette of sounds, with many corners of the album veering off into otherworldly ambient, often through a striking new-age sensibility. The most impressive element of this album is its flow and evolution across its 12 tracks, sounding a lot more like one single-minded thought rather than a collection of disparate dance-not-dance tunes. The quality of the recording is noticeable, too, with tracks like "Rev8617" or "Via Sub Mids" sounding professional, both in vision and style. Through an intricate collage of breaks, samples, polyphonies, and subtle electronic manipulations, Skee Mask has truly mastered his own art, and is giving a new direction to the wider 'UK rave' sound. BIG.

Review: REPRESS ALERT: Mostly found mining his archives on For Those That Knoe and dropping a quality album on Subwax, comeback champ Derek Carr makes the logical move over to Russ Gabriel's Ferox label with four trips through sublime machine soul. If you've listened to previous Derek Carr releases then you know what to expect - the beats flutter with thoughtful programming and the synths cartwheel through expressive patterns that speak to the same sci-fi fantasies that made B12 so iconic in the early 90s. There's also space for a little subtle electro, as on the haunting "Time Out," bringing a touch of versatility to the record without breaking that shimmering vintage techno haze.

Review: The latest audio missive from the My Own Jupiter camp brings together debutant Nicholas Lutz (here using the previously unused Draculas Lutz alias) and former CABARET Recordings producer Omar Chibarro. They pair begins proceedings with arresting A-side "Instrumento", a bold, bass-heavy and angular electro jam packed with mind-altering acid lines and shimmering, deep space motifs. They change tack on the flipside, accompanying snappy, organ-laced NYC garage bumper "Tschuss" with the hybrid acid-jack/spacey house bluster of quality closer "Gerogliftko". While stylistically varied, the EP's three tracks are united by an attractive looseness that only emphasizes the thrillingly wayward nature of the duo's otherworldly electronics.

Review: Some eight years on from his Hessle Audio debut, Blawan has finally got round to releasing his debut album. Predictably, it's rather good, offering an eight-track assault on the senses built around his now familiar clanking, industrial-tinged polyrhythmic techno rhythms, foreboding electronics and paranoid, claustrophobic aural textures. Most of the sounds - including the percussion hits - were created using modular synthesis, which gives Wet Will Always Dry a particularly atmospheric and otherworldly feel. There are nods towards the likes of Surgeon and Livity Sound, as well as Rhythm & Sound/Basic Channel style dub techno, but the album's greatest strength is that it never sounds like anything other than a fine set of Blawan club tracks.

Review: Last year, dub techno veterans Paul St Hillaire and Rhauder joined forces for a superb collaborative debut album, Decoded. Sushitech has wisely chosen to breathe new life into their soulful, dubbed-out exploits by handing over the parts to a string of high profile remixers. The first of three Reconstructed EPs begins with Cobblestone Jazz's peak-time take on "Skank", where St Hillaire's patois vocals ride a metronomic techno backing track rich in restless late night stabs, delay-laden woodblock hits and bleeping electronics. Flip to the B-side for a warmer and hazier take on "Control" by Amorf. Sitting somewhere between bass-heavy tech-house and head-in-the-clouds deep house, it's something of a hypnotic delight.

Review: The buzz around this track apparently began to build when Fantastic Man included it on his Resident Advisor podcast. It comes from a shadowy figure described by the label as "an elusive Australian producer". With its dreamy, Simple Minds-ish fluttering chords, dreamy and ghostly melodies and buzzing, '89 style breakbeat-house rhythm, "Speed Your Rage To Me" is very much in keeping with current dancefloor trends. It's the sort of track that will not only appeal to younger DJs who get excited by DJ Boring and DJ Seinfeld releases, but also older Balearic beards who have fond memories of stumbling around fields at six in the morning to records with this kind of floating, loved-up appeal.

Review: Blessed with cloudy, Aphex Twin-esque electronic orchestration and metallic percussion, "Quick Eternity" provided a fitting finale to Daniel Avery's recent album, Song For Alpha. It's little surprise, then, that Phantasy Sound boss Erol Alkan has decided to release it as a single. You'll find Avery's own Club Edit - a slightly more percussive and hypnotic interpretation with a DJ-friendly intro and extended, end-of-night-friendly beat-free outro - on the flipside, but it's Four Tet's headline-grabbing remix that will take the plaudits. It's a mix in two halves, with a stunningly blissful and loved-up first four five minutes (think shoulder-swinging two step beats and rush-inducing synth flourishes) making way for four minutes of percussive, wonky and psychedelic techno intensity. It really is breathlessly good.

Review: Appleblim teams up with the Middle Eastern label Boogie Box once more for some hybridized explorations on the cutting edge of soundsystem music. "Vurstep" is a wildly psychedelic banger that keeps the rhythms broken while the sound design levels tap into the same delirious vein as his ALSO work with Second Storey. "Dream Wisdom" takes things in a smoother direction, riding on laid back breaks and plush threads of melody in a vintage ambient techno style. Shed steps up to remix "Vurstep" and delivers one of his pointed masterclasses in stripped, UK-leaning techno, and then Forest Drive West trips the whole thing out with a heavily dubbed meditation.

Review: Balkan Vinyl and its TB-303 obsessed offshoot I Love acid enjoyed a hugely successful 2017, so hopes are naturally high for the Chicago jack-inspired imprint's first EP of 2018. Predictably, the compilation style affair is packed full of rock solid box jams and mind-altering peak-time workouts. Highlights include the ragged acid lines and bouncy, ghetto-house style beats of Granary 12's "Manc Mania", the futurist Detroit melodies of Matt Whitehead's "Transmit Frequency", the no-nonsense acid house psychedelia of Posthuman's "Meat Market" and the slowed-down intensity of Han Do Jin's "Drive Less". Oh, and the Adonis style swing of Chevron's on-point opener, "Hitman & Her" (which, thankfully, doesn't feature a cameo from Pete Waterman and Michaela Strachan).

Review: Following an appearance last year on Cabrera, Santiago Naura is back on his own label to expound his vision of modernist techno even further. "Dust (Mix 1)" is a pumped up workout, all muscular drums and bold, chiseled synth hooks shimmering around the rhythmic core. "Dust (Mix 2)" is a more heads-down affair that locks into a cyclical groove for the late night crowd to lose themselves to. "Element" presides over the B side with a deeper approach that makes great use of interplay between different textures and tones to create energy and momentum while keeping the drums on the straight and narrow.

Review: Ambien Baby is an emergent project from the increasingly prolific D. Tiffany and Dan Rincon, both luminaries of the Vancouver scene. After a first official appearance on Normals Welcome last year, the pair are back with some deft and delightful adventures through rugged breaks, playful synth touches and a healthy dose of 90s attitude. Somehow these ingredients are deployed with that distinctive laid back West Coast vibe that makes for such compelling listening as well as potent dancefloor weapons - take "Nada (Live at Sweep Up)" as a case in point. Rolling breaks and nasty acid lines there may be, but the mood still has a heads down quality to it that just gets under your skin.

Review: Fresh from fine outings on Sukhumvit and Blind Box, Diego Krause serves up a record for Rawax that is, quite literally pale blue (and helpfully titled "Pale Blue", in case you're colour-blind). The vibe is warm, groovy and intoxicating throughout, with Krause wrapping springy and tactile techno grooves with a variety of warm and futuristic melodic elements. This attractive formula is arguably most potent on opener "Artefacts" and the shimmering "Pale Blues", though the funkier and - whisper it - disco-flecked "Heritage" is also rather impressive. Fundamentally, all four tracks strike the right balance between low-end dancefloor grunt and heady, life-affirming melodic bliss.

Review: Bloody Mary's Dame Music imprint has long been a reliable source of forthright peak-time fare. There's naturally more to be found on The Melting Point Volume 2, a belated follow-up to a mini-compilation released at the tail end of 2017. Remarkably, the A-side boasts cuts from two heavy-hitters of the 1990s. Hardfloor kick things off with a typically boisterous, mind-altering acid workout in their inimitable style ("Thisishowwedo"), while Josh Wink wraps undulating TB-303 lines around beautiful melodies and dreamy pads on the luscious "Dame Deep". Over on the flipside Alien Rain slams down a ridiculously heavy chunk of foreboding acid techno ("Contact"), before Bloody Mary fittingly rounds things off via the classic Chicago acid-jack of "Mono".

Review: More unreleased and remastered content from dub techno veteran Steve Hitchell aka Radius' Obsolete Machines and Interpolation Tapes projects. Said to have been restored from cassette live recordings between 1995-2000, the project has been on hiatus since 2001. The demos were initially sent to Rod Modell and Mike Schommer shortly after they launched the label, but passed it on to Octal Records for release. Sadly, that didn't materialise. Modell and Schommer dedicated a generous portion of their time remastering the release. From the introspective and personal dub of "Soul Rotation" (unreleased tape mix), the glacial and cavernous immersion of "Culture" (original 12" mix) and not to mention some powerful soundscapes from the great north of Michigan in the form of "Interpolation Tape" Parts One & Six.

Review: Iranian label Shahr Farang has been quietly issuing some of the most engrossing minimal, ambient and abstract records in recent memory, keeping the release rate simmering but ensuring every record is worthy of attention. Romanian champ Vlad Caia makes a welcome addition to the label, embracing his experimental side with these engrossing studies of leftfield percussion and sound design. "Confine" is a spacious excursion that rolls out interloping sequences of synthetic chimes that fall with an almost organic patter. "Expand" is similarly delicate, feeling as though it floats midway between the earth and the edge of the atmosphere with passing globules of synthesis dropping through its clouds of cyclical melody.

Review: Cong Burn continues to exercise one of the most promising instincts for future-minded music on this, their third release. It's surprising they haven't done more previously, considering the maturity of their curation, but either way the quality remains at an all time high here, leading in with some light and liquefied 4/4 sonics from Chekov before pirouetting into one of Duckett's illustrious abstractions around the techno blueprint. Label regular Lack is back on side B with the stern and punchy "Track 3," and then Haddon finishes the record off with "Anabiosis," a densely textured, slow creeping trip of a track.

Review: As the matter-of-fact title makes clear, this 12" is the first in a series of EPs offering up fresh reworks of tracks from KiNK's superb 2017 album "Playground". These revisions are, we'd suggest, rather large. Check, for example, the celebratory rush that is Dusky's rambunctious reworking of "Perth", which builds on waves of luscious chords and snappy beats before turning into a stab-happy, riff-heavy main room slammer of the highest order. Arguably even better is the druggy, metallic pulse of Radio Slave's ten-minute "Disco Dub" of "Teo Techno". It doesn't sound like disco, of course, but rather a throbbing, angular trip into Berlin techno territory that's as mind-altering as it is heavy.

Review: There's a loose concept surrounding the latest double EP-come-compilation from Nina Kraviz's TRIP label. Fundamentally this is a collection that mixes "essential gems" from the label's catalogue with a wealth of previously unreleased material. Kraviz's own "Opa", a fiendishly leftfield techno assault that's as skewed and out-there as they come, is undoubtedly amongst the highlights, but it's not alone. Check, in particular, the hectic, mind-altering braindance business of Biogen's "Hexagraphic", the speaker-busting loop techno intensity of "Grasshunter" by Exos, and the utter insanity of Bjarki's "3-1 Tap Lush", whose bizarre and tipsy manipulated non-verbal vocal sounds are capable of inducing travel sickness even in seasoned travelers.

Review: Yes, yes! Here's a new Jared Wilson bomb on his own 7777 imprint - marking 11 years in the game and a slight shock to us when we reminded ourselves of its cult status! The dance polymath kicks off with "Everpressed", a minimalistic drum machine nodder with subtle electro nuances, and "Local Slope Pros Only" follows up on that with yet more intricate bass waves and twisted percussion knots. "Roland 7 (Paris mix)" takes a turn into the deeper ends of the Chicago house sound, kicking off some heavy bass drums in the mix, while "BF2 (Traverse Bay)" lifts the spirits with a lil acid trickery, morphing and shifting with that inimitable 303 flair.

Review: Eddie Fowlkes is one of Detroit's finest, still working doggedly to push his own distinct spin on the Motor City sound. He's taking no prisoners on this latest 12" on his own Detroit Wax label, bringing a tough and righteous rhythm to the foreground on "Give It Up For My DJ" with some of those head-spinning melodic flourishes that are his trademark. "Love Works" is a crooked groover that piles the bass on generously and keeps the swing up high - if this one doesn't get bodies jerking then nothing will. No-one does it quite like Fowlkes, and he's on impeccable form here.

Review: Fresh from reworking Remake's 1992 progressive house cover of Vangelis' "Blade Runner" theme, Maceo Plex returns to the Ellum Audio imprint he co-founded with Alta in 2011. This time round, he's got company, too, with veteran Texas outfit Paradigm Shift (whose "Requisition" was featured on Plex's recent Fabric mix CD) lending a hand on title track "Mutant Pulse". It's a typically atmospheric, peak-time-friendly affair, with trippy female spoken world vocals weaving in and out of an alien techno groove and spine-tingling pads reminiscent of the Moby classic "Go". On the flipside, "Mutant Radio" is an altogether darker and more hypnotic interpretation, with spaced-out stabs and ghostly chords accompanying Plex's fuzzy, on-point grooves.

Review: Dan Curtin's 1994 album, The Silicon Dawn, is still a marvel even after 24 years of significant playback, and is still inspiring younger generations of producers who are interested in the more dystopian side of techno - very relevant, it seems. In fact, it would be fair to say that this LP has become a pinnacle of modern dance music, almost a framework for perfection, and it's not a surprise that it's absolutely killer from the very first track, "Intro", which kicks off a wild voyage into hyper-space. From "Parallel" to "A Flash In The Distance" there is plenty of deep-minded synth experimentation and acid bleeping, and this carries on through with the supremely modern "Population 2". It is a hard LP to describe in parts, precisely because it is so well interlocked, flowing from tune to tune with one single vision in mind - the outer realms of space and time. A true techno album, from a legend.

Review: When he started his career as Phase Fatale, Hayden Payne was still living in New York and contributing to fellow industrial techno noisenik Dom Febrow's Hospital Productions label. Now based in Berlin, Payne's latest excursion is being released by one of Germany's most storied labels, Ostgut Ton. Naturally, there's no let up in the intensity of Phase Fatale's productions, as intense, foreboding and mind-altering opener "Reverse Fall" - think trancey, psychedelic arpeggio lines, EBM riffs and thunderous beats - emphatically proves. "Incision" sounds like a loving tribute to percussion-loving, dark-side industrial outfits SPK and Test Department, while "Blackbox" and "Empty Whip" take contrasting approaches to industrial techno with equally impressive results.

Review: Darmstadt's Benedikt Frey delivered a terrific fine player last year on Los Angeles' imprint ESP Institute, that proved there was some stylish diversity within his sonic repertoire. Since then, he's also impressed as remixer, like on his great rendition of Carl Craig's classic "Domnia" but now it's time to have his own tracks reworked. There's some fine talent onboard here for Artificial: Remixed: Versatile main man I:Cube steps up first to recreate "H For Hysteria" merging a diverse array of influences within his charming and hypnotic perspective of the track. Dusseldorf's enfant terrible Toulouse Low Trax delivers some fine minimalist rhythmicity as always on his oddball version of the track. The B side belongs to two versions of "Private Crimes" by lesser known artists - our pick was Frey's close collaborator DALO and her hard hitting and tunnelling techno rendition.