Back catalogue: Minimal/Tech House

Review: Umek has enjoyed a rather odd career, going from toast of the European techno underground to main room dancefloor hero over the best part of a decade. Here he joins forces with youngster Beltek for a full-length on commercial house heavyweight Toolroom. Out Of Play is in many ways an odd album, fusing elements of contemporary electro house, classic prog, loopy disco-house and big-room tech-house with the pounding pulse and relentless rhythms of techno. Yet it's not without its moments, and offers an enjoyable mixture of uncompromising bounce ("Keep The Frequency", "Charley Chopper"), twisted rhythms and unlikely anthems ("Let The Bass Kick", "Rasta Voice").

Review: Underworld are back with a soulful, contemplative, yet typically uplifting album. The single and album opener, "Crocodile", is simply as good as they get. "Ring Road" sees Hyde off on one of his famous psycho-geographic jaunts (this one around Romford, on St George's Day), marking time with his compelling word rhythms, while the treated found sounds in "Cuddle Bunny Vs Celtic Villages" conjures a decidedly non-cuddly, almost menacing atmosphere. The lusciously lowering "Beautiful Burnout" features Underworld's trademark synth swathes and swells with a somehow doomed beauty, but the minimal "Holding The Moth" boasts such a bassy spring it practically bounces clean off the vinyl. Meanwhile "Glam Bucket" shimmers like a sheet of liquid crystal and "Best Mamgu Ever" offers a sliver of downbeat, Balearic bliss at the albums close.

Review: Underworld are back with a soulful, contemplative, yet typically uplifting album. The single and album opener, "Crocodile", is simply as good as they get. "Ring Road" sees Hyde off on one of his famous psycho-geographic jaunts (this one around Romford, on St George's Day), marking time with his compelling word rhythms, while the treated found sounds in "Cuddle Bunny Vs Celtic Villages" conjures a decidedly non-cuddly, almost menacing atmosphere. The lusciously lowering "Beautiful Burnout" features Underworld's trademark synth swathes and swells with a somehow doomed beauty, but the minimal "Holding The Moth" boasts such a bassy spring it practically bounces clean off the vinyl. Meanwhile "Glam Bucket" shimmers like a sheet of liquid crystal and "Best Mamgu Ever" offers a sliver of downbeat, Balearic bliss at the albums close.

Review: After a string of well received 12"s and remixes (some in collaboration with Vicknoise, or under the "Spare Time" moniker) here comes the long-awaited debut from Factor City's Undo: the producer and DJ from Barcelona who's mixture of house and classic 80s New Order/Factory-esque indie sounds make "Despacio" a joy to behold. Undo first surfaced in the wake of the 2000s electro-boom with his own productions. Joining forces with another DJ and producer, Vicknoise, they created their own label Factor City and, as they say, the rest is history. Resident at "The Loft" nights all over Europe, a record label in full swing with a series of well received records to boot. Featuring his trademark deep, wide, dreamy, sound the album varies from intimate, sad numbers in "Superpuesto" or the epic "No Matter Where You Are, We Are Together" to the pure indie mayhem of "Running Away" or classic techno "Atrau-me", via the already recognisable Factor City sound "Happy Monday" and his unmistakable vocals "Despacio" and "Believe Me". From early 90s electronica to classic British independent rock (from Joy Division to My Bloody Valentine), Undo takes a bow to the past but, rather than try and copy his heroes, integrates them into an original universe of his own making.

Review: Global traveler, DJ and producer Uone may not have released many singles of late, but as this atmospheric and entertaining two-disc mix for Balance Music proves, he's certainly been busy in the studio. His DJ sets - and there have been plenty around the world of late - tend to be full of his own tracks, collaborations and remixes, and he's packed this release full of them. Musically, it draws on many global styles and instrumental sounds, mixing them with grooves variously influenced by deep house, tech-house, techno, progressive and spine-tingling big room flavours. It naturally flows wonderfully, with enough sonic detail to suggest that it may reward repeat listens.

Review: This eponymous debut album from Ursprung - the partnership of Pantha Du Prince and longtime friend Stephan Abry - is an interesting proposition. Sitting self-consciously outside the dancefloor sphere, it touches on a yriad of sounds and influences without ever sounding like anything in particular. There are subtle, glitchy minimalist rhythms (a Pantha du Prince speciality), jazz-flecked guitar doodles, pleasing melodies and FX-laden sounds that evoke memories of Walls and Field Music. Some tracks are ambient, others vaguely percussive; at one point, they even sound like early New Order after a few too many sherberts (see "Kalte Elche"). Throughout, Ursprung is utterly beguiling.

Review: Vladislav Delay has set out to release an album under his Uusitalo disguise. He says it's gonna be tekno. That might need an explanation. It's no secret he is not a tekno kid, clubber, whatever. It was his first Luomo show that took him to a club for the first time. His background is rather somewhere else, and all along his musical searches and life's parties, his hands were rarely in the air. He rejects, or at least heavily criticizes DJing, doesn't currently even hold a turntable on his own and his vinyl collection consists of only a small collection of rare jazz albums from the times long gone by. Although he rarely has put his musical hands to it, tekno has always been close to his liking. Huh? For this artist, "tekno" has always been around, even before he heard music labelled as such. Some would maybe not outright agree to his description (of it); for him tekno is more about attitude and feelings rather than something to dance to. He can have silent tekno. Where he comes from, Northern Finland, there just wasn't any "real" techno available, it was too far from Germany, but there was lots of silence. And that's where he found his tekno - naturally. (One could say also that where there are drugs there is tekno; therefore tekno is everywhere.) At some point though, Berlin came to him. Cologne came to him. Turntables came to him. And came the technology to make different kind of music. In the early 90s while living in Helsinki he found some music which he thought for a moment was something fresh and the start of something new; experimental electronic music from Detroit and Germany or some offsprings elsewhere, people experimenting freely with rhythms and grooves and searching for interesting soundscapes and alternative endings. Then soon after, came an end to that, unfortunately. For him, at least, the music started to change into something different; harder, more boring and more, well, hands in the air. It felt like the creativity was gone. Some said it became minimal. Right. Now it's more than few years since those days and he's living in his studio in Berlin and making a full cycle. He wants to live those moments again. He wants to feel that excitement once more in that turntable music. Bang Bang. Besides living his interest and memories and satisfying his personal musical needs, Mr. Uusitalo takes a walk around the block and sees for himself what he'd like to have there in those beats and club dancefloors, if they did dare. And care. He'd play around with strange time signatures so subtly that you wouldn't notice if it wasn't 4-to-the floor but maybe 5 or 6 or 9-and-a-half. He'd create poems with beats, tell stories with those intricate rhythms and bass lines. He'd invite interesting sounds. Not downloaded from the internet. Not made with virtual this or that. He'd include some living elements, mistakes, drums and field recordings. He'd synthesize the synthesizer. He'd say goodbye to the drum machine looping the same loop and instead make himself play the loop. A rhythm fanatic by heart, on this record he searches for the patterns and rhythms more than ever with his ten plus albums released so far. They might be more simple or at least more straightforward and direct than his now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t-beats in his Vladislav Delay albums. It's the passion for the rhythm. Love and suffering for the cause. No personal second-best beat. What has a drum beat to offer anymore? In the overly homogenized genre of club music, it seems producers and audience alike don't care too much if the same beat goes on and on, on the contrary they seem to like it. And it's a free world to do so. For him though, there's something still in there. A life. And then there's this sport of laptop kids programming the most complicated beats ever, but what you gain there you loose on the other end with the lack of musicality which for him was always the priority. As so atypical in (electronic) music, he demonstrates not only the unique high quality studio and production skills, but also the ability to speak and express himself highly in musical terms. So he does tekno which may not be much tekno at all in the end. Except that it is for him. There are 10 songs on the CD, each inspired by personally close Finnish literature, his long-gone writer father and grandmother, to whom the album is a homage as well. The title of the album, Tulenkantaja (a flame bearer), is taken from the name of a radical literary group in Finland in the early 40s to which his grandmother was part of. There are excerpts and samplings from their written works displayed in the booklet included with the CD, as well as a beautiful graphic design to enhance the experience made by a long-time collaborator Kaisa Kemikoski. This time tekno has a story to tell. There's something human to it.