Back in stock: Techno

Review: Astonishingly, 18 years has now passed since Gilles Aiken - probably more celebrated these days for his work under the alternate Desert Sky alias - first offered up off-kilter tech-house tracks as Edward. Last year, he impressed with a wonderfully deep and unctuous EP on deep house imprint Smallville; here, he makes his bow on another must-check label, Kalahari Oyster Cult. In keeping with the imprint's love of all things trippy and otherworldly, opener 'Tentacle' sees him wrap chiming lead lines, psychedelic synth motifs, weird noises and layers of percussion to a chunky, locked-in house groove. Aiken then goes off piste via a skewed, druggy and at times dreamy tech-house remix of Trybet's 'Moodsetter'. Arguably best of all though is impossible-to-pigeonhole flip-side 'Dr Octo', which is immersive, unsettling, tactile and eccentric in equal measure.

Review: Since Sven Vath's 2022 album Catharsis was an epic, triple-vinyl affair, it seems fitting that this remixed version is equally as vast. There are one or two surprises - see Krystal Klear's grandiose, big room trance take on 'Feiern' and a wonderfully pitched-down, chugging and bleeping re-wire of 'Catharsis' courtesy of Mano Le Tough - but for the most part the revisions offer different takes on big room-friendly techno and drowsy Germanic tech-house. That's no bad thing though, as the highlights come thick and fast throughout, with our picks of a very strong bunch including the deep, dreamy and intergalactic Florian Hollerith version of 'Silvi's Dream', a thumping, frankly nightmarish Planetary Assault Systems revision of 'Nyx', a dubbed-out-but-jacking Detroit techno take on 'Butoh' by Robert Hood, and Robag Wruhme's wonderfully wonky interpretation of 'The Worm'.