Back in stock: Techno

Review: Tresor is celebrating 30 years in the game with a series of special reissue projects. This one really goes way back to almost the start, when Juan Atkins was already defining the early techno sound. For this one he linked up with Moritz von Oswald and Thomas Fehlmann in 1992 for a second iteration of the 3 Men in Berlin project. The monumental results join the dots between Detroit and Berlin across a collection of timeless cuts that meld bassline funk, hypnotic minimalism and soulful machine sounds into propulsive, emotive dance floor joy. The unbridled energy and cosmic elegance of 'Jazz Is The Teacher' might just be the highlight.

Review: Dark Entries welcome back the inimitable Doc Sleep aka Melissa Maristuen for a superb new album of ghostly and ethereal house and techno. This is a welcome follow-up to last year's ambient and IDM exploration, Birds, and shows another side that draws on Maristuen's years of queer clubbing. It fuses aspects of New York house, Berlin techno and West-coast breakbeats and is "a love letter to the West Coast's magnificent natural landscape, the light of the Pacific sunrise." That is reflected in the sublime synths and silky rhythms which manage to both move your body but also captivate your mind. It's another cracking album from the Doc.

Review: Much loved doom monger emo kids Depeche Mode have always been ripe for remixing by new generations of electronic music artists and so it is that there 'My Favourite Stranger' gets a series of re-rubs here on Columbia. Tech house mainstay Boris Brejcha remixes first and elongates the grooves with mournful pads up top. The Ela Minus remix of the same tune brings some extra textured and darker moods and the best is saved till the last if you ask us. The Lond Island Sound remix is high speed and tinged with electro synth work as the moody vocals echo about the mix to trippy effect.

Review: Dylan Brownsword strips things right down to the elements for this exceptional exploration into dub techno influenced drum & bass. Stark futurism that smoulders at its coldest and will have you shivering at its hottest, vibes range from the shimmering Basic Channel style reflections of 'B1' to the more autonomically minded swagger of 'B3'. Trembling with echoes of his powerful techno work in the past, across this whole collection DB1 keeps one foot in the dance, one foot in the stars throughout.

Review: Russian label Samizdat follows up its notable first release with a second 12", this time from Genning. It is classy and sophisticated outing all the way with this one as opener 'Stair To The Sky's Rooftop' soon sets you off on a trip to the stars with its slick rhythms and glistening celestial chords. 'Window To The Dub' follows more of a tech house template with loopy drums and bass that rumble up and down and 'Summer Lighting' then zones you out on some lovely pads and frictionless drums. Last off all is 'Mystic Lakes' which takes off on balmy pads and plump, cuddly but dynamic drums.

Review: Jack Bags is back on La Sabbia with volume two of his Panorama Groove series. Once more he flies through a mutant mix of electro and techno in his own singular style. 'Another Acid' is first out of the blocks and layers up gurgling 303s with dark and sleazy vocals over a fat mid-tempo groove. 'Gently Glide' does just that with a more serene atmosphere, silky chords and ice cold drums - it's a super nice tune for late night grooving. Elsewhere are the likes of the grubby 'Ground Control', the Chicago jack of 'In My Mind', twisted and sludgy electro-techno motions of 'Operating Base' and the futurism of the more stripped back 'Underbush'.

Review: Dino Sabatini returns to his own Outis Music label with another mesmerising selection of deep electronic sounds that seem to take plenty of influences from dub, downtempo, ambient and trip hop. The open has a creeping melodic sequence that is forever subtly shifting and brings a sense of eeriness to the smooth and unhurried dub rhythms below. 'Inenarrabilis' is then a double quick flurry of tiny synth loops and trippy effects then 'Plena Lunae' allows you to breathe once more and sink into a vast dub soundscape. 'Ego Experior' shuts down with some paranoid baselines bubbling up through a slowly churning groove. Some quality work here for sure.

Review: Amsterdam collective Forsvarlig Arkiv is branching out with a new label that is going to represent what they are all about. This debut EP, 'Arkiv I', comes after many years of expert curating of their podcast series and welcomes four different, equally vital artists to offer up some fresh techno. Forest On Stasys kicks off with 'Sunken', a swamp and gurgling bit of mind-melting sound design, Zemog's 'A'te' then rides on silky, meditative loops with rising synth tension and Eyvind Blix follows a similar path with a more psychedelic edge. Biocym shuts down with 'Sabotage', a more percussive and edgy sound for late-night freaks.

Review: Loud Enough has readied its third outing and this one comes from the amusingly titled Raiders of the Lost Arp. As you can expect from the alias, this is music that leans heavily on arps. 'Funk009 (Otto-Zero-Out)' kicks off with thudding and taught house drums overlaid with rattling percussion and detuned synth hooks. 'Funk010 (Lava P)' hist harder, like an Italo Johnson party banger and then the flip side flips the script as it should: 'Funk006 (Drop)' has a more lively and lithe groove, brighter chords and an uplifting energy. Rounding things off is 'Funk007 (Circular)' , a cosmic looper with the best arps of the EP raining down the face of the gritty beats.

Review: Innershades pays tribute to classic dance music sounds on 'Heritage Vol. 1', infusing his tech and progressive productions with distinct sounds rather than merely emulating them. Monolithic drum sequences and menacing melodies run throughout the EP. 'This Is Belgium' features a clear-cut rhythm structure that allows the bassline to glide against SH-101 leads, while 'Eternal Voices' employs a 303 to create chaos and the energetic 'Rave Signal' combines ever-modulating leads, silky string layers and solid bass. The EP showcases Innershades's contemporary palette and pays respect to the new beat genre.

Review: The Vil label kicks off with a masterful reissue of a classic EP from 1993. 3 of Us was a trance and house project from an Italian collective made of F. Conti, Gianluca Rastelli and Marco Cucchia. They dropped only five EPs between 1993 and 1999 with this being the pick of the bunch. It hits the perfect sweet spot between the driving of hypnotic techno, the melodies of trance and the dreaminess inherent to much Italo music. Track one is a dark but smooth roller, the second has a stomping tech house energy to it and the third asnd fourth close out the EP with two more edgy techno stylers that bring old school cool to any club.

Review: Soon as you drop the needle on PH Project's opener 'Blue Yellow Twist' here we guarantee you will be twisting your face in mock disc guts. The bassline is a filthy and old-school gem with organ chord stabs and spoken word snippets adding the irresistible sense of naughty house funk. DMA then bangs the box with cosmic synths and hints of 90s post-rave, Pilot System cruise on a chunky bit of bass-driven house and Frozilla & TJ go deep on far-sighted chords and bubbly bass. This is unpretentious, functional but fun house music from a small but already well-formed label.

Review: Unstoppable Munich label Ilian Tape has another entry in its fine ITX Series here and this one is called 'Biospore Farmers' from Fields of Mist, describing it as "Sunrise Beams Through Orbital Mist." In less abstract terms, it is a gorgeously hazy and lo-fi electro-exploration. The first two cuts are slow, doleful and reflective with grainy pads and deep space ambiance swirling around nice rough-edged broken beats. The B-side picks up the pace with the brilliantly kinetic bounce of 'Astral Projection Spores' and then the skittish and celestial trip that is 'Orbital Mist'. A high-class EP once again.

Review: Poetic Hovering Synth Tinkerer.

Review: Novi Orbis is a label that has said before it is on a journey into outer space and that sonic mission continues here with a new EP from Elias Sternin. He is a fresh new school soundsmith with who impresses with this one from the off: 'Musica Interminable' is all bendy bass and driving, swampy synths with thudding kicks that sound like a future rave in the stars. 'Magnetismo Inexplicable' is another nice and elastic mix of drums and bass with bright progressive chords and 'Three O'clock' (rework) then gets loose and tripped out. 'Portamento' closes down with a gurgling baseline and snappy drums to get you marching.

Review: Tel Aviv twosome Red Axes can always be relied upon to deliver trippy, mind-altering and left-of-centre music, regardless of what stylistic or rhythmic framework they're operating in at any given time. That assessment rings as true as ever on the duo's first Shall Not Fade outing. Opener 'The Electric', for example, mixes druggy and hallucinogenic electronic motifs with a throbbing, retro-futurist house groove, sci-fi synths and the creepiest of lead lines, while 'Next One Is Bill' is a twisted, brain-melting jack-track propelled forwards by a filthy TB-303 bassline. Turn to the B-side for 'The Bee', a buzzing, foreboding chunk of punk funk/dub-disco/dark house fusion, and the intoxicating mixture of music box melodies, restless Chicago house drums and clandestine sounds that is 'Axes in the Sky'.

Review: Jeff Mills for Axis Records. Are there any more exciting words for fans of Detroit techno? Here The Wizard assumes his MIllsart alias and once again sets off to explore extra terrestrial soundscapes. The tempo here is slower than under his own name, leaving more space for the sci-fi details and cosmic motifs to really sink in. The beats roll deep, too, with gentle percussive clatter dropped in from above. In the case of 'Breaker Breaker One Nine' the sound is almost Glenn Underground-esque. It is the EP highlight, though the glistening 'The Upside Down' is not far behind.