UK based lovers of all things Electro, Hybrid Collective have assembled their first compilation on Vinyl. Present are heavy hitters such as Arsonist Recorder, Ekata, Kim Cosmik, The Droid, Broken Joe and Science Cult’s Syrte with dance floor ready electro stormers.
Mike Inzinger from Vienna presents his third solo release, featuring three Detroit Techno tracks of classic Robert Hood minimalism style and 1 Electro track.
Japan’s Katharsis Recordings turns to Sabatoj to offer up two deliciously deep techno cuts. ‘I.C.U.’ is a heavy, slow motion roller with a grinding bassline and an eco-system of deft cosmic designs peeling off the groove. ‘Missing Man’ is slightly more speedy but no less heavyweight with its wall-rattling bass and rising sense of tension. Mike Parker steps up to remix on the B-side and does so with wiry and futuristic electronics and Kannabi keeps it heads down and moody with his remix.
To continue the Dutch series, Orlando Voorn takes you on a journey with this very deep 3-track ep on the Partout label.
Another instant classic electro-techno banger from the mind of Erik Travis. Ever since his first release in 1987, Erik Travis has become well known for his individual style consisting of pared-down, up-tempo drum programming, short vocal samples, and synth stabs.
New quality electro-techno release on brokntoys with two Club Mayz tracks and a CJ Bolland remix.
Mini-album releases featuring a collection of 5 tracks from the Sound Metaphors catalogue masterfully remixed by Anatolian Weapons. Sound Metaphors gives their keys of the label’s catalogue vaults to Aggelos Baltas aka Anatolian Weapons and this is the result. 5 tracks previously released on the labels now submitted to the studio prowess of the Greek machine. Dubbed out, tripped out, slowed down, sped up, mind blown. Aggelos brings his distinctive flavor to the table and re-constructs some of our dacefloor oriented favorites from the early 90’s.
Close your eyes and merge into Benedikt Frey’s ‘Fastlane’. Imagine sitting in the driver’s seat of a an automobile, one with exceptional horsepower and torque, as you stare out the windshield at the red light, warping in fata-morgana a mile down the road. It’s a straight-away, a black top with two lanes, and against your better judgment you decide to floor the gas. No hesitation in your muscle, your ankle or the ball of your foot, which you now realize is some kind of universal pivot, the first point of contact fusing your body with the will of machine. In this moment you’re in awe that you, a human, an animal, grew from pond scum into something so advanced as to engineer this thing, a mechanical beast capable of overwhelming power and exhilaration. But you also feel a seductive dread, an outside force diverting you from caution toward a dangling carrot of curiosity, asking yourself, ‘How far can I take this thing?’ The dread, now a constant, is numbed, equalized by an adverse intoxicating gratification. You feel both sensations in real time, however, rather than take responsibility for yourself, friends, family and innocent bystanders, you cement your foot to the floor and lean your head back. Noise around you fades to mute. Smell the benzene-scented air, feel the wind on your face, the menacing vibration of the vessel you control beneath you and every grain of asphalt under its tires. This mile has now lasted an eternity and you’ve left your body for some objective view, as if watching climax of a film. Past the point of no return, you embrace abandon and lean into fate. The film becomes slow motion, a crawling pace so mesmerizing you convince yourself of an option to eject yourself from this madness, but as you finally let go of your last morsel of fear, you run the red light head-on into the nucleus of a fantastic glistening sculpture of torn metal, glass, oil, broken dreams and heartache. ‘Fastlane’ may be just drum machines and synthesizers if you’re timid, but listen harder and know the catastrophic reality of existence, a wreckage so gruesome we dare not rubberneck, but afterall it is our nature to stare.
Lazy Reflex Complex lands their second release with a split EP by Clone’s techno-ambassador Lenson and Sculpturism / Miller & Keane; two collaboration projects of Dave Miller that were produced back in 2003. Tranquilizer, originally released on the Schenk1 compilation (Onderwereld), has been remastered for vinyl and is exclusively available for the fitting format. Label head 543ff reworks Tranquilizer in an ominous and hypnotic fashion. Big room beats built to shake floors and move crowds
The next Reclaim Your City pays tribute to the Benelux techno connection as they welcome Dutch maestro Steve Rachmad under his Sterac alias and Token boss Kr!z to the fold. Each contributing a brace of the typically elegant hard-hitters they’ve become so widely reputed for, the pair has us swinging in balance between proper floor-destroying potency and mind-expanding otherworldliness. A homage to the uncluttered and beautifully escapistic vision they’ve advocated throughout their career and continue to push in their various endeavors, RYCL019 is a feast for the purists as much as a compellingly future-facing manifesto: classic in essence but vanguard in its quest.
Lee Holman, the Bristol born artist, returns on End Of Perception. This release themed four techno tracks, deep and spaced out. A unique record from an artist soaring to ever greater heights.
Rawax presents a new EP from Unbroken Dub. ‘Highway Sleepers’ begins on an ambient-acid note with the not-a-gabber-track ‘Gabba’, the EP moves slowly into stickier and gooier dance oceans, ending up completely immersing its beats in spitty acid ectoplasm on ‘Murky’ before rinsing itself off and drip-drying in the ambient gusts of ‘Spectral Wind’.
Cititrax presents a highly anticipated 12” from An-i, the musical moniker for Berlin-based Korean American Doug Lee. Doug has been DJing and producing records for two decades under various aliases and collaborations. The return of An-i has found him in even more brazen territory than on previous releases. He moves between musicality and chaos while remaining intriguing throughout – a testament to his uniqueness and integrity. The opener, ‘Rabble’, tonally crude and menacing, backed with a relentless primitive machine rhythm and a psychotic vocal parodying mob mentality, points at the absurdity of take-down culture. ‘Rubble’ follows, a mighty stripped-down instrumental dub. The flip, ‘Chapel Perilous’, is a wandering spaced-out journey into the psyche. It reflects on loss and ultimately freedom from one’s ego identity, meandering an uncertain path that results in a spiritual epiphany.
Dold and Blue Hour are teaming up on yet another split EP for Arsenik. The two explore new and diverse sounds, broadening the label output with four tracks ranging from dub soaked and dreamy house to early rave and obscure techno/electronica.
“Forgiveness of Blood Remixes” shows a modern vision of techno voiced by the sound of the four artists involved: SHED, Anthony Linell, Alessandro Adriani and Tensal. Static and hypnotic waves of strain recur, even though the 4 tracks represent 4 different major expressions of what techno explicitly and implicitly stands for. Forgiveness of Blood Remixes – is a distillation of the modernist and nostalgic sound capable of impacting both on the dance-floor and mentally. Four strongly evocative tracks that narrate not only the artists’ but also the label’s path.
Aubrey has always brought a detailed sense of sound design to his heavy techno. The Berlin-based artist does that again here on a first EP on his own Solid Groveos since 2016. Two tracks delve into his archives to come up with some rare and obscure jams from the 90s. One is “Lose Yourself”, a bright and cosmic take on techno, while “Breaking Out” offers golden US-style house with nice frayed synths and smoky depths. Two new cuts are “Chase Mind” – a cavernous and dubby, with whimsical pads and unrelenting bass locking you in a trance, then “Mr Muscle”, a twisted acid techno closer that completes a varied and vital EP.
L.F.T. aka Johannes Haas is back on Mannequin Records with a brand new 6-tracks EP “Hollow Head”. Blessed by the vocal features of Rosaceae (the bloodthirsty breaktbeat ‘I Want To Be A Witch’), Nils Fock (the banging wave ‘Hörst Du Das’) and Petra Flurr (EBM anthem ‘Panzer Tanz’), L.F.T. music evokes a urge of dancing while simultaneously embracing a DIY aesthetic, creating a sonic universe where past, present, and future converge. The Hacker is joining the pack with his interpretation of ‘Panzer Tanz’, turning the track into a straight techno banger. L.F.T. is a visionary artist who takes listeners on a mesmerizing journey through a sonic landscape that fuses elements of electro and new wave aesthetics.
The Hipodrome Of Music 