Back catalogue: Techno

Review: Carl Hardy's Animals On Psychedelics label doesn't rush things. It has taken several years to get to release number seven, but you won't find us comparing. It is a prime example of quality over quantity and here again with have another timeless, mind-melting release designed for whacked out dance floors at 5am. Vladimir Gnatenko is back once again after previous impressive outings and both his cuts are molten affairs with liquid synths and neon colours over supple drums. He also collaborates twice with Kai Noob on a pair of similarly tripped out techno wormholes.

Review: Workshop is one of those labels that has always operated at the fringes of genre. Deep house and techno are the loose starting points in many cases, but artists never fail to veer off into the shadowy nether worlds that surround those basic forms. Kolorit does that here with two intriguing cuts all with the same name. The first has lumpy scattered drums, scraping sounds, ticking hi-hats and freaky noise samples all peppering them. The second has haunting chords sequences over a ticking sound that is coated in hiss and crackle. It's late night and mysterious. The third has clattering percussion and shimmering synths that rise and fall and build in tension and intensity.

Review: Following fresh from her most recent single 'Tarde', the world's best-kept techno titan Nina Kraviz has gone on to enlist an all-star cast of remixers for a decalogue of versions of the track, notably topped off by a pystrance remix. But on this 12", Kraviz shortens the full ten tracks to four, streamlining the selection for the system-respecting DJ. "Tarde" meaning "late" in Spanish, Kraviz' original track is a brooding slow murmur, textured by earthen Reese-esque basses, ambirhythmic rumbles, and amorous lyrics in Spanish sung by Kraviz herself. Though the mood is climactic, Kraviz' subject matter is one of dubiety and anticlimax, standing tiptoed on the fence between giving love and deeming it too late. The remixes are uniformly weird, not eschewing the needs of the club-goer yet not shying from the dare of challenging them either. Of the remixes chosen here, dubstep OG Mala crops up for a surprise dash of steppers' quality; U.R.Trax continues the charge with a tricky but efflorescent minimal version; and Vladimir Dubyshkin opens the floodgates for a wacky big-roomed hard trance floater.

Review: Passing Currents aims to stand out from the predictable by offering a deeply human touch in its music. This five-tracker backs that up by melding academic expertise with dancefloor intuition and the A-side features txted by Phil Moffa remixed by Yamaha DSP coder okpk after they met during doctoral studies, they flip technical mastery into bass-driven energy while Atrevido' fuses California warmth with analogue electro, Josh Dahlberg's rediscovered 2009 electro gem, 'Ass On The Floor', still bangs and Detroit's Kevin Reynolds delivers hypnotic grooves before Hazmat Live pushes boundaries with a sound rooted in soulful, experimental innovation.