The Hipodrome Of Music

Framework – as you’d expect of a man who performs genuinely live for hours, often only ever calling on his own tweaked, edited and skewed productions – is an uncompromising album made up of pure techno tracks of the sort you’d expect to hear on the dancefloors of places like Berghain or Tresor. They go from pulsing and classic sounding to skipping and glitchy, through greyed-out and sandy via swinging and syncopated but always with a sense of restraint and control whether they are abstract, apocalyptic, atmospheric or whatever else. Drawing from a dusty, dirty toolbox of sounds, the echo-y, cavernous chambers and dusky warehouse aesthetics of Dehnert’s moody music betrays the purity and simplicity of his arrangements. Although his records are undeniably functional, at the same time, they are neither nondescript nor forgettable: somehow, through masterful sound designs and an accomplished knack for blending real tension and atmosphere with his obvious Basic Channel and Berghain influences, Mike Dehnert manages to lock you into whatever mood takes his fancy with apparent ease.

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