JOHN SPRING レコード& CD

Review: Minimal jam techno like you've never heard it before. Berlin's Johannes Mai aka John Spring exits the hibernation cave for the first time in over 13 years: a legend in minimal techno, Spring's early works are always indubitably marked out for their rougher, serrated sonics, though this doesn't detract from their intrinsic tranciness either. 'MyCn18: Engraved Hourglass' unearths three unreleased tracks by Mai from the mid noughts: 'Train Ryde', 'Rave Behave', 'Melodic Ten', and last but not least a concluding Harry McCanna (Undersound, Statica) remix of comparably present-day provenance. Mai's inspirations are cosmic in scale and proportion: the Cn18 nebula gleams ever so brightly from its convergent, omniscient eye, as raspy red sands diminish to nil.

Review: Zombie technology sounds to ooze and overflow with battery acid, as US producer John Spring reissues four future-facing, yet technically millennial-made tracks for Pitched Peach. Produced in the early 2000s by the minimal master-don, real name Johannes Mai, 'FMMF' and its three follow-up tracks prove the durability of an 80s industrial and EBM sound, and that it cannot go extinct: especially when mixed impressively with the tempo and sensibility of tricky minimal techno. 'Traum.a' adds to this with globs of kick, power-up riser and bass stab, exegeting a forward marches reminiscent of platform gaming. Falcko Brockseiper's remix is the only melodic cut, highlighting Spring's advantage taken over an intriguing homophonic happenstance: "traum, oder trauma?"