Back catalogue: Techno (All)

Review: In celebration of their tenth birthday, Selador marks the occasion in style with a four-track collaborative EP, featuring tracks from 3D, Robert Owens, Olivier Giacomotto, Quivver, Dave Seaman, Hernan Cattaneo, Argia, and Jepe. The opening track, 'Known Love', is a deep, pulasting house tune that feels like an instant classic, perhaps thanks to the soulful, pop-tinged vocals - think LCD soundsystem meets Four Tet. 'Snailblazer', the second track on the EP, takes a much darker turn, with a chugging, EBM-esque feel. Full-bodied and complete with obscured vocals, this is the kind of track to pull out your bag when it's time to really get stuck in. On the B-side, 'Napkin Knowledge' draws on the glistening synths of eurodance, yet still securing the melodies to a grounded bassline and rhythm section. 'Salitre' is the perfect closing track, rising up in a gleaming, ecstatic melody, before delicately returning to ground level. A varied yet firmly cohesive collaborative release - the perfect way for Selador to kick off their 2023 catalogue.

Review: Tokyo-based independent label Infodump follows up its inaugural EP with a new release from owner Takuro Hasumi. 'Ticktack' opens his account with lithe, droning synth lines which are layered up next to organic percussion and dark bass energy that keeps you on edge. 'Wilderness' then flips the script with a much more bright and trippy melodic mix over minimal drums and last of all is 'The Fall'. This one is another intriguing mix of silvery synth shimmers and stripped-back drum programming that locks you in the moment. The fresh EP comes with fresh artwork from Japanese outsider artist Pinksk.

Review: Strap in for this one because Head Front Panel is here to rattle you to your foundations with another uncompromising EP of groove-driven techno. This is proudly linear, functional tackle but it comes with great sound designs and high-class ideas. 'Loom' has punchy rums stacked on top of one another and fizzing walls of rusty synth that break only to reveal chopped up vocal snatches. 'Momentum' is heavy and hard, with banging drums and more caustic synths and that continues through the relentless 'Running Man' and macho techno funk of 'Disc.'

Review: Head Front Panel is the first guest producer to land on Dark Machine Funk and apparently has long been an inspiration. He brings four precision tooled techno weapons aimed squarely at the dancefloor. 'Panama' is a copy cut with vocal yelps that will ignite the party, 'Tactile' is dubby, with watery pads and a relentless sense of forward motion that will sweep anyone off their feet and 'Surdo' then gets more dark, heads down and menacing with its glitchy melodies and warehouse feel. 'Them' brings more darkness, rusty loose, edgy synths and all round vibe of techno mischief.

Review: Head High is a ling running alias of Polish techno producer Shed. It's for his more loopy and emotional sounds and has always been popular with DJs. This new EP is a mighty fine return that offers three track sou steamy, summer ready action for sunset and sundown sessions. 'Break Away' has fizzing synth lines and dusty drums with well placed vocals up top. 'Push It!' comes on much stronger, with harder drums and more prickly percussion but another fine vocal that adds that touch of emotion. Last of all is 'Chamber No 6', another dark cut with tightly programmed drums loops, scratching hits and a menacing bassline backlit by diffuse chords.

Review: Darker Than Wax welcomes back Malik Hendricks for a new EP that was recorded in Brooklyn in 2020 and 2021 by the American-born, Lisbon-based producer. And it marks something of a shift in his musical journey as he moves away from the sample-heavy sound he is known for and towards more organic grooves with hints of Midwest funk and techno. There is an electro flavour to the opener, sleazy ghetto house flourish to 'Fiyahverkx' and broken beat minimalism to 'Totem.' On the flip comes 'The Money Dance' which is the best of the lot - a soul-drenched and elastic house jam with quality chords and keys.

Review: Hermit in a Rave Cave is one of some 30-odd alases for prolific Dutch studio nerd Legowelt. He debuted the project in 2022 and after a fine first EP, he follows it up with a second superb self-titled effort on the ever-excellent Clone Jack For Daze. As always with Legowelt, this is machine-made music with real soul and nice dusty aesthetics. It kicks off with some deep, Detroit tinged techno bleeps, more gritty and muggy lo-fi drum track 'Central Meekness' they the glistening cosmic melodies of 'Digitize Your Daydream' sink you into a wormhole. There's a terminator feel to the retro-future sounds of 'Do You Look Like Me', subtle uplift to the trance chords of 'Flow Network Ooze' and pure star gazing bliss on deep house jam 'Whisking A Dream With Satans Trident'. This is some of his best work in years.

Review: Dutch artist Tammo Hesselink has always played with rhythm whatever style of music he makes. He does that again here with a new EP - his debut for the Midgar label out of Berlin - that showcases his stripped-back style over five fresh cuts. Opener 'Zero History' has loopy beats and a moody atmosphere that's dark but alluring then 'Nut Wandel' is another heady and hypotonic cut with undulating bass and deft sound designs while the flipside features a trio of variations on that theme - sleek rhythms and evocative little details that draw you in deep. These might ostensibly be DJ tools, but they sure do elevate a dancefloor in sophisticated ways.

Review: Jerome Hill is having a fine year - back in February he turned out his superb Flow Mechanics album on Hypercolour and now he is back on Super Rhythm Trax with a fire four-track electro and house outing. The opener 'The Warning' is a prickly one with acidic lines and raw, chattering claps making for a menacing vibe. 'Harlesden Shuffle' (extended 12" Disco mix) is then a wonky disco-tinged minimal cut with Wagon Repair-style synth leads and plenty of acid stabs. There is plenty of bite to the jacked-up B-side cut 'Combustion Zone' then 'House Thing' rounds out with early Chicago vibes, dusty drums and naughty basslines.

Review: Bristol's Hodge is one of those producers with a signature style no matter the genre he makes. He's an adept studio craftsman who designs sounds in a way few others do and he shows that again here with this fresh 12" on the mighty Timedance. 'Voice Crash' opens up with clanking great hits over minimalist beat frameworks that are always on the move, and you will be too. '151' is a more manic and dense arrangement with malfunctioning loops, knackered synth mutations and whirring effects all making for something fairly mind-blowing. Last of all is 'Fussyhead', a percolating and potent rhythm underpinned with lashings of UK bass.

Review: M Plant's 20 Year anniversary celebrations are set to end on a high with a triple CD compilation featuring a wealth of new, remastered and unreleased material alongside some classics from the Robert Hood canon. Before then, the latest in an ongoing series of celebratory 12" releases sees Hood look to the classic Protein Valve, which was the first 12" issued on M Plant back in 1994. The title track has already been subject to some edits as part of this M Plant 20 series, but it's nice to see three tracks from that original 12" reissued here as a reminder how Hood's pioneering minimal approach first took shape. Look out for new Hood production "Analog Track (Ghost)" wedged in amongst the protein too!

Review: When Broom met Hood! To celebrate M Plant's 20th anniversary, Robert Hood is planning a whole host of events and releases including a sequence of 12"s that see classics and rarities remixed and edited. Who better to inaugurate the series than Hood's UK contemporary Mark Broom? Here Broom digs deep into the M Plant archives, choosing to work with "Untitled 1" from Hood's Moveable Parts series and "One Touch" from the Minimal Nation album. Canvas Hood fans and the majority will probably nominate the first edition of the Moveable Parts series as one of their favourites, so it's little surprise that Broom elected to add his own signature dirty funk to the opening track for this 12". His edit of Minimal Nation opener "One Touch" proves to be just as effective, playing toyfully with the bassline whilst dicing the beats with undoubtedly dark results.

Review: Japan-based producer Hoshina Anniversary has already served up two top EPs for the Amsterdam based MUSAR Recordings crew, and now is back with a third that is just as good. As always this producer fuses contemporary sound designs and machine made techno sounds with rational instruments. It's a beguiling mix that means opener 'Guru Guru' kick off with a dark and potent baseline line and exotic melodies. 'Banri' is a gritty and twisted cut with gurgling synth lines and dark waves of synth drones that keep you guessing then 'Kaga' is one for loopy and hypnotic after party wig outs. 'Usagi' closes with unhinged melodies and fluttering snares over silky beats.

Review: NX12X is the first in a new series of experimental records from this label and the artists given the keys for the inaugural release are Goldsmiths student and modular synth maestro Sam Hostettler and electronic innovator La Leif who tackle a pair of tracks each. Hostettler's sounds are the moody, heavy ambient atmospheres of 'Pointalims' and the more light and airy li-fi soundscapes of 'Opalescence.' La Leif offers broken beats with a skeletal feel and a burial-style synth aesthetic on 'Kyoto' and then crunchy breaks and fizzing, distorted synth malfunctions of 'Kimochi.'

Review: Grown-up techno label Kompkat has always served up its most dancefloor ready sounds as part of the Speicher series and it is now up to an impressive 129 installments. This one kicks off with Hunter/Game & U S H N U's collaboration 'Reload' which is an electric cut with bright synth lines shimmering about the mix next to thunderous claps and dark future vocals. On the flip, Bawrut cuts loose with rave stabs over dense percussive grooves with vocal snatches adding to the unsettling and boisterous mood of 'Clapa', which does indeed also have plenty of claps.

Review: Organic Analogue makes it to double figures with a sublime new split EP from HVL and Gacha Bakradze. The A-side is opened up with 'Infinitesimal', a stripped back and icy bit of minimal dub techno, then 'AgneffC01' gets more rhythmically physical with scattered beats and hits and 'Collective Genius' is tense, kinetic techno with a real sense of paranoia. 'Routes' is the first B-side joint with Gacha Bakradze bringing some direct but economical drum machine grooves under meticulous percussion and then 'Chain' layers smeared cosmic pads with twitchy details and 'Widow' ends with a heavy heart. No wonder, then, that a host of eminent DJs like Ben UFO are all over it.

Review: The Ranges label has really found its, yep, range over the course of its first dozen or so relies and this 15th is another gem. It is a return to the imprint for Hydergine who once again draws on a rich vein of dub techno history and reworks it into his own new rhythms and arrangements. The opener is a classically infused sound to get things going and after 'Entangle' there are more broken beat patterns to 'Spectrum' and a pulsing sense of edgy undercurrent to 'Introspection.' 'Perception' is the most sparse of the lot and also gets a Resoe remix that has deft synths darting about the mix.

Review: The Third Room concludes its so far excellent various artists series with a third and final instalment of yet more future-facing and heady cosmic techno. Justine Perry kicks things off with the deep space synths and paired back hypnosis of 'Diversion' while Hadone then bangs a little harder with 'Strain Relief' which has twitchy synth motifs and hard, hammering beats. HWRD's 'Mirage' is a buoyant techno bouncer with loopy synth ringlets all interacting with each other to mind-melting effect and Quelza's 'Domino' dips into deepest of dub techno territory to shut down a nice diverse EP.

Review: Melbourne's Pugilist opens the proceedings on Modern Hypnosis's third various artists EP. It is the sort of hi fidelity and rhythmic precise techno that you might find on labels like Livity Sound. 'Flip Trix' is couched in plenty of warming dub undercurrents with upright drums and funky percussive patterns. Henry Greenleaf then goes into overdrive with his double time and mind-melting drum programming on the frenzied 'Stopper Knot' and Ebb shuts down with the broken rhythms and raved up synth fizz of 'GTAM' to make for an adventurous EP indeed.

Review: Dub techno don Steve O'Sullivan's Mosaic label is back with a new dubs series and vol 1 kicks things off with a real doozy on lovely red wax. The boss himself offers up a Bluetrain special edition dub of Hidden Sequence's 'Synapse' which is all icy lines and liquid rhythms which make you think of some frozen lake on a misty morning. Sub Basics (Temple of Sound, Lion Charge Records) opens up with a fresh dub laden track with rippling chords, tons of echo and rolling drums on 'Quarters.' Both are timeless dub outings, as you would expect from this label.

Review: Detroit house hero Kyle Hall returns with his biggest project in some time in the form of Transmissions, a new double album on his own well-regarded Forget The Clock. All six tracks have enigmatic, functional titles and the music is as idiosyncratic as ever. Each one veers more towards techno than is Hall's usual style, with pulsating synth lines and tight, dusty drum tracks making for stripped-to-the-bones grooves. Later on, things grow ever more abstract with twisted acid lines screwing their way through the increasingly ragged and roughshod drums. These are perfectly imperfect jams from a master of the form.

Review: Second time around for the late, great Rai Harakami's second album, Opa*q, gets the reissue treatment. It's long been tricky to source outside of Japan and for whatever reason has not been issued in any form since it first surfaced in 2009. It's an attractive and at times off-kilter blend, with Harakimi mixing and matching ambient textures and enveloping electronic soundscapes with jazzy keyboard solos, quirky grooves, madcap post-techno acid lines, IDM and break-core style beats, and the kind of squelchy and tactile synth motifs more often associated with boogie albums made in the 1980s. It feels pleasingly lo-fi, too, as if a writer of 1980s and early 90s video-game soundtracks had made an electronica album. This edition also includes fine remixes by Ian O'Brien and Max 404, plus two hard-to-find bonus cuts.

Review: The late Rei Harakami was a vital force in Japanese ambient electronica around the turn of the millennium, and his catalogue of works continue to be a source of intrigue and exploration for seasoned listeners as much as new arrivals. Colors Of The Dark was originally released in 2006, and features Harakami exploring strikingly elegant, undulating tones with a gallery-like crispness to the overall sound field. He also worked with Ikuko Harada on the track 'Yami Wa Hikari No Haha'. Rings has been committed to reissuing much of Harakami's music, and after the sought-after 2015 vinyl pressing of Colors Of The Dark became unobtainable again so quickly, it was high time for a new edition to be released so the music might reach more eager ears.

Review: Is there a more vital label in all of underground electronic music than FXHE? It never ceases to amaze us how Omar S manages to put out so much music of such high quality, mostly of his own making, but also from plenty of satellite producers he lures under his wing. This time we're treated to a rare full-length from someone other than the boss as the Motor City's Hi Tech duo step up with a raw ghettotech workout. These are sleazy tracks with raw production, bumping basslines, high-speed rhythms and plenty of rapped vocals packed with juke and footwork attitude.

Review: The inimitable Jamal Moss comes forth with his second offering for Madrid's Apnea records. 'The Moon Dance' unfurls over 11 tracks- in turns pensive, elegiac, and slammin'. Between the sedate expanse of opener 'When The Earths Shadow Falls On The Moon' and the final cymbal strokes of gauche, machine funk closer 'Mawu', Moss lifts us on yet another Afrofuturist space flight of fancy, passing through superclusters of deep house, tactile techno and stroboscopic piano jams along the way.
Standout moments include the smoove-as-u-like-it intergalactic lounge jazz diversion 'The Moondance Moon Walk Version'; its steezy stride-piano vamp seamlessly intertwining with Moss' signature babbling acid intrusions, the irresistibly groovy bump of 'Tethered 2 The Divinely Spaces With In' and the hypnotic sway of 'Celestial Poems Of The Lady With 10000 Names', which opens up from Terrence Dixon-esque introspection into broad windy city string washes and synapse-tickling bleeps. With this collection, Moss pens yet another crucial chapter in the seemingly bottomless hieroglyphic being scroll. While 'The Moon Dance' is one of his most accessible and harmonious works to date, it doesn't lose an ounce of the rawness and immediacy of his previous work. Essential listening!

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