Delta Funktionen – Traces [93DSR]

After four years of techno EPs for Delsin and Ann Aimee, Niels Luinenburg aka Delta Funktionen has finished his debut full length, Traces. Though still very much couched in techno, the album sees the Dutchman explore plenty of new sonic territory, as he often does in his long ranging DJ sets. It’s adventurous, basically, and is an album that doesn’t loose itself in intricate sound design, but instead pairs a raw, machine made aesthetic with plenty of real human soul and palpable earthly emotion.
“Traces is about my long time research into electronic music. It covers tracks that make reference to my favourite subgenres within electronic music: techno, house, electro and (Italo)-disco. There was no specific idea behind it because the album contains tracks made over a long time. Some are 3 years old, others were made this year, but in the end I think it sounds like a coherent piece of work.”
Made using a mixture of drum machines, FM and digital synthesizers, various bits of hardware and digital FX units, the whole thing was sequenced in Ableton with plenty of sample use to finish it off.  From the atmospheric openings of blissful electro joint “Frozen Land” through the sultry and searching acid of “Enter” and on to more forceful cuts like “Redemption”, this is an album for listening to as much as it is for dancing. Mood driven landscapes like “Onkalo” prove that, but you’ll have to check it out for yourself to get a real appreciation of the story Delta Funktionen is telling.

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Delta Funktionen – Traces [93DSR]

Mike Dehnert – Fachwerk 25 [FW025LP01]

Mike Dehnert marks a quarter century of releases on his own label with Fachwerk 25, a full-length album comprised of 13 tracks. This new album sees Mike experimenting somewhat. Away from the dubbed out, functional and raw techno funk of his usual output, Fachwerk 25 shows some concession to the album format, with more mysterious tracks of ambient buried amongst bits of acid, rave and plenty of unhinged sound design. After the dystopian and scene-setting intro, there’s the chugging house and nagging synths of ‘Fraction’ that are both dark and beautiful at the same time. From there, there’s slowed, melancholic dub in the form of ‘Modulat” and the beat-less, underwater sounding ‘Courant’ with its icy pads and wide lateral spread. The title track is more what you’d expect of Dehnert, with well-swung kicks and grainy synth chords rolling along like basement techno should, before the squelchy industrial madness of ‘Grundform’ breaks the stride of the album once again, taking you off to a different place entirely. The second half is just as varied and unpredictable, ranging from raucous peak time stuff to more nuanced and cerebral fair that always manages to bares the hallmarks of Fachwerk: quality, invention and unpredictability.

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Mike Dehnert – Fachwerk 25 [FW025LP01]