For his new album Existenz, Function marks a clear step away from the corporeal techno of his recent releases. Pivoting around themes of religion, sexuality, trauma and healing, it is a work expansive and celebratory, a clear liberation from a deeply internalized past. Formed from a collection of recordings made in a period from late 2016 to mid 2019, Existenz takes the form of a creative outburst in reaction to a number of traumas – recent, childhood and throughout Function’s life. Life partner Stefanie Parnow assisted the production process in its entirety, providing inspiration, spiritual healing and featuring vocal contributions.
ambient techno
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In 2018 Konduku took everyone by surprise with his debut called Kiran. It doesn’t happen all too often a new artist emerges with such a developed and distinctive sound, delivering an album as debut. Now, a year and three EPs later, Nous’klaer Audio is thrilled to present his followup: White Heron. His singular sound of odd-groove based techno has aged into a sound that’s more mature yet still very playful. Konduku further refined his sound of snappy polyrhythmic blips by using a controlled sound palette focusing on the tensions in-between. Starting with the mesmerizing depth of Kenar to the stripped down halfstepper Hermitage, and from the synthetic beat patterns of Kobalt to the colorful dream fields of Belki – White Heron is an album designed to listen from start to finish, but more than anything else meant for the club.
Andy Stott’s first release since 2016 and first EP since 2011, ‘It Should Be Us’ is a double EP of slow and raw productions for the club, recorded this year and following a series of EP’s that started with ‘Passed Me By’ and ‘We Stay Together’ early this decade. Recorded fast and loose over the summer, these 8 tracks harness a pure and bare-boned energy, melodies subsumed by drum machines and synths; slow, rugged hedonism. It’s all about rhythmic heat and disorientation, pure dance and DJ specials rendered at an unsteady pace, from percolated house and percussive rituals to moody tripped-out burners.
“Hymn to Moisture” is Rrose’s first solo album, and it unfolds with the scrupulous care and patience that defines all of Rrose’s auditory experiments. The album explores embodiment in natural phenomena by playing with microtonal and unstable tunings, shifting overtones, and integrated modulations that make it difficult to separate tone from noise. Evoking wind, water, rock, and flesh, the album occupies multiple spaces simultaneously: abrasive and tranquil, propulsive and meditative, familiar and alien.
Boris Bunnik aka Conforce returns to Delsin for his fifth album on the label. Across eight tracks he delivers a wide range of styles yet keeps the ethereal and textural aesthetic of his sound recognizable at all points. His atmospheric approach combined with razor sharp percussion and intricately programmed synths make “Dawn Chorus” one of his most adventurous albums to date. Flirting with his Versalife moniker at times, this album leans to his experimental works, strongly optimized for dance floors using his unique sounddesign skills and unstoppable drift to reinvent himself.
Since returning to music a few years ago, B12 man Steven Rutter has released a wealth of fine material in his trademark thoughtful, melodious, complex and far-sighted style. His latest EP is a little darker and more uncomfortable, sounding not unlike the soundtrack to a yet-to-be-aired sci-fi TV movie about the slow death of the universe. He begins with a fine chunk of creepy, faintly unsettling electro (the otherworldly creepiness of “Neuro Fracture”), before reaching for weightier sub-bass, melancholic melodies and complex electronic rhythms on “Not To Be Trusted”. Over on Side B, “Divine Intervention” is a fuzzier chunk of horror-informed electro ghostliness, while “Reds Dead” pops, chimes and bubbles impressively thanks to Rutter’s extensive use of dub style delay effects and stabbing bass.