Back catalogue: Techno

Review: Brock Van Wey hails from the Bay Area but his BVDUB project is known worldwide. It sees the American provide a near-constant stream of innovative ambient music on the Past Inside The Present label - this new double album comes just a couple of months after his last one, Fumika Fades, but is essential once more. There are plenty of intense and heavily textured tracks as well as more empty and escapist pieces with heavenly melodies and subtle vocals worked into to dreamy effect. As always he serves up the album in various formats and this is the double cassette version which lends itself to the lo-fi aesthetic perfectly.

Review: After a recent release on CD following its first outing on Omar S's FXHE, Diners Club International now drops Hi Tech's self-titled album on cassette with some added bonus joints. It's a thrilling, pacey listen that whisks you off your feet and through a world of juke, footwork and ghetto beats that are all drenched in soul. The cuts are short and sweet, from the smudged and smeared r&b overtones of 'Funny Fuckits' (feat Nila & Stefan Xix) to the heavily filtered and trap-style 'Fitness By King Milo.' It's a futuristic sound steeped in fresh and inventive rhythms and heartfelt emotions.

Review: Diners Club International recently served up this Hi Tech album, Detwat, on CD, but now backs that up with a limited cassette version featuring some bonus cuts. It originally got released on Omar S's FHXE label and is a sleazy and high-speed ghetto workout with filthy low ends aimed well and truly at the rump. Juke, footwork and plenty of spin-off styles are all chewed up and spat out with plenty of top collars and guests adding colour. There are pumping beats and fractured vocals on 'Money Phone', Drake style trap vocoders on 'TakeOffOnnaPorsche' and bright, reflective, optimistic chords over hurried beats on 'Glitch N Ass' (feat Cheapskate Skutta, Dastardly Kids) amongst many more highlights.

Review: US-based, South Africa-born Brendon Moeller has been hugely prolific over the years under sever different aliases. Pathways is his newest album and is another signature blend of deep techno, dub, and ambient sounds that explore fresh ground. This one comes on cassette - a fitting medium for his always hazy, lo-fi sounds, and opens with a gorgeous stargazer loosely tethered to a dreamy groove. 'Movement' is just much of a cosmic floater, 'Accident' has static electricity fizzing about an underwater chamber and 'Through' is a slow-motion dubscape. 'Exodus' and 'Calm' close out this beautifully unhurried exploration of the deep.

Review: Russian titan Monokle is back to once again traverse many different sound worlds with his new album Ultraflowers. It is one of a number of superb albums landing on Constellation Tatsu this summer and one defined again by its warmth. The title track is a lo-fi, scruffy and deep opener with persuasive breakbeats, while 'Glassy Eyed' is an ambient jungle trip that drips with watery melody. 'Night Objects' offers some introspection and 'Moths' is a glitchy future techno cut with smeared synth soul. '1000Work' layer sup more breaks with elegant ambient melodies and 'Predteche' casts you admit in the deepest corners of space.

Review: Chicago's mighty Specter stands firm as a pivotal figure among the chosen artists on Theo Parrish's esteemed Sound Signature label. His latest new long player Brutus presents another unique fusion of house sounds. In this cassette tape format, Specter expertly merges synthetic and organic elements that call to mind Parrish's own distinctive style. The album also embodies a seamless blend of timeworn, rustic tones and dynamic, futuristic visions within his singular house realm and impart some devastating feelings through the melodies, while the drums consistently mesmerize and keep you entranced within his rhythms.

Review: With a title referring to an underreported aerial incident above the Willamette Valley, when a mysterious fireball soared through the atmosphere and disappeared into the light of the rising sun, Strategy aka Paul Dicklow from Portland embarks on his third outing for the LA label Peak Oil, albeit his first for eight years. Dicklow describes this album as both a "love letter to the myriad strains of breakbeat house", and "a specific attempt to grapple with iconic samples in a kind of archaeological dissection", but results are neither as lairy and straightforward as the first definition, nor as academic and dry as the second attempt to sum it up. Rather, we get a wonderfully frisky style of electronica that is informed by classic beats and samples but finds a way to re-invent them for the 21st century rather than simply roll them out the way you'd expect. 'Bassmaker', for instance, takes a very famous hip-hop sample, loops it and weaves it into the sonic fabric of the track until you forget it's even there. 'Bug Bongo' has a madcap keyboard line that's like Luke Vibert on speed, bursting with cheeky wit. 'Inside The Pyramid' is possibly the album's natural climax, Amen breaks and nostril-tweaking sub-bass, but everything here is what too much electronica tends not to be, namely full of personality and human touches. Quite, quite, loveable.

Review: Few labels are as idiosyncratic as Theo Parrish's Sound Signature. It deals in house and techno of an otherworldly sort with esoteric rhythms that blur the lines between the synthetic and the organic. And that is exactly the case with the label's magnificent 100th release, a new album from Howard Thomas that takes its cues from his love of 80s sci-fi films and beat tracks. It's a stark world of dance floor pressure with buzzing synths and clattering hits, raw beats and leftfield energy that brings utterly new ideas across seven spellbinding cuts. This is a cassette version of what is an immediately timeless album.