Back catalogue: Techno (すべて)

Review: Basel-based experimental labels Amenthia Recordings and A Walking Contradiction join forces for their first collaborative release here in the form of the Flash Crash/Hack Crash EP. Both labels are known for pushing boundaries within their close-knit creative circles and this one features Agonis' heavy stepper and Konduku's whirlpool of low frequencies on the Amenthia side, while Lemont continues the low-end, tripped-out vibe. Varuna represents A Walking Contradiction and delivers swampy, slow-motion sounds in their signature style. This release embodies both labels' commitment to daring, unconventional electronic sounds.

Review: Troekurovo Recordings is a production team made up of Toki Fuko, Vadim Basov and Evgeny Vorontsov and they have been hidden away deep in some enchanted Russian forests recording music. Now they are putting out the results on this superb double pack. This project started back in 2016 as a live experimental jam and is now an annual tradition made on loads of analogue gear on the banks of a canyon that was formed many years ago by a melting glacier. The locale provides inspiration - from the fresh country air to the meteor showers often visible overhead - for the music making which is strictly "no preparation, no pre-programming - hardware, friends and live improvisation only."

Review: Albert Van Abbe impresses with his new full-length Olodumare Who Is which is an exploration of deep, hypnotic techno with profound spiritual undertones. Drawing inspiration from his diverse cultural background and the Yoruba religion, the album blends dark, atmospheric soundscapes with intricate rhythms and deep basslines while Van Abbe's meticulous approach to production makes for a mysterious journey where each track weaves together minimalist percussion, tribal influences and eerie melodies. The result is an immersive sonic experience that evokes a sense of both tension and release while fusing ancient traditions with modern techno.

Review: Belgian techno mainstay Peter Van Hoesen - currently based in Ho Chi Minh City - has always been a master of many things - tone, timbre, texture, tempo. He has crafted some of techno's finest long players as well as most destructive club tracks over the last 20 odd years and now he returns with Towards the Center of Time and Surrounded by Spirits on Vlek. It is his first long player in over a decade and is a superbly contemporary work of techno that leads up to the magnificent avant-garde finale, 'Twilight Static Dilemma'.

Review: Originally released in 2013 on Periferin, former Mayhem man Varg's debut album, Skaeliptom is a ride and a half. A ride to where is the question. It's dark and mechanical, but at the same time freed of Earthly constraints - the ambient techno equivalent of becoming uncoupled from the mothership during a space walk and calmly residing yourself to enjoying floating away into the eternal darkness. Even if there's a sense nobody comes back. It's not that there's a sinister vibe here, more of an unknown quantity. It's sparse and strangely quiet, patient yet edgy and always moving us onto new, previously unexplored soundscapes. Vast and somehow also very personal, Skaeliptom is a curious experiment in electronics that gives us perspective on just how much there might be out there waiting for us to find.

Review: Warp's 'Artificial Intelligence' compilation, a ground-breaking and wildly popular collection of "home listening music" that helped introduce the world to ambient techno and IDM, turns 30 this year. As this remastered anniversary reissue proves, the release has lost none of its charm in the three decades that have passed since it first appeared in stores. Highlights appear thick and fast throughout, from the immersive ambient techno creepiness of The Dice Man's 'Polygon Window' (an early Richard D James production) and deep space electro shuffle of Autechre's 'Crystel', to the bleeping bliss of Speedy J's gorgeous 'De Orbit', the acid-flecked Detroit-isms of 'Spiritual High' by Up (a barely used alias of Richie Hawtin) and the horizontal headiness of Dr Alex Paterson's 'Loving You Live', an alternative pass on the Orb's ambient house masterpiece 'A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain'.

Review: Music From Memory totally recall and compile this next instalment in their popular multi-artist compilation series, Virtual Dreams. This time centring on Ambient Explorations In The House And Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999, this second edition in the series follows on from the first released in 2020, and continues to shine a light on the house and techno-adjacent music that helped redefine the definition of ambient music during the 1990s. While the first focused on Europe, we venture far further East here, primarily riffing on the many ambient flows and sequential somnaumblisms eminent from the J-shaped isle from the time, including the trans-missive floater, 'Phoenix At Desert' by Akio and the pulse-tidal electro phaseout, Web's 'The Cycle Of Seasons'.

Review: We're told that inspiration for this bumper new double album of super fresh techno from the young New Palm label came in 2023 when the artists met up on the LA River armed with "a couple of generators, a Klipsch system, turntables, and a modular rig, for a day into night of music centred around various forms of dub." The results are superb, with Charles Edward opening up with the sparse, laid-back dub of 'Bogus August', Lena Deen keeping it deft with the ambient soundscapes of 'Either Ore' and Berndt's 'Solstice' exploring widescreen minimalism dub, with plenty more to love in between.

Review: This latest Semantica compilation sees the cultured Spanish label continue to shine a light on the familiar sonic paths explored by Svreca's label, all while maintaining its signature refusal to be confined by any one specific sound. But of course, despite this resistance to labels, there is still a recognisable core that defines the label's sound and that is deep, heady techno. Iridescent builds on this heritage as he smoothly transitions from ambient and electronic textures to more driving techno. This release really stands out amongst this label's already fine array of quality EPs and LPs.

Review: Limbic Resonance go big with this bumper double 12" compilation of absorbing ambient sounds from a range of popular names. Terence Fixmer goes first with booming bass rumbles and sparks of static electricity on 'Threetwoone' then the scratchy textures and mystic moods of 'Cardioid Resonance' set a bittersweet tone from 'Kujo'. Elsewhere Alessandro Adriani's 'Snakeskin' is a suspenseful layering of synths and drums and Ezuri RSOT's 'Blasphemous Bath' is sounds like a communication from a distant planet. Vatican Shadow, Ancient Methods, Zoviet France and more all contribute further excellent to this cinematic album.

Review: Wow. When you're writing about music releases it's often tempting to present difficult to describe tunes as unique. That's not always factually accurate, though, as is clear when you come across something like this seven-way bag of the wonderfully bizarre. Half the stuff on here, at least, really does defy categorisation, although we can probably lump it all together as experimental, industrial-leaning electronic music with avant-garde tendencies. And a libido. What that describes varies wildly. Nuke Watch's 'NWPJS Perc' interprets the term as a kind of slow build, low BPM workout made up of what could well be the noise of various tools, pipes and taps being struck. Umfang delivers a dark and menacing hip hop-electro instrumental, packed with atmosphere and pent up energy. Ana Fosca goes for shrill refrains and drones. Egg Meat serves a dominatrix of off-time weirdo-techno tones with mind melting percussive cacophonies.

Review: Franck Vigroux may be a nightmare for journalists - he rarely talks about his music, preferring to keep his aims, influences and inspirations to himself - but he's amassed an impressive catalogue of experimental-minded releases over the last two decades. While that was initially abstract jazz/electronica fusion, in recent times his releases have explored full-throttle, synths-and-drum-machine driven industrial music, albeit with plenty of dark, paranoid ambience - and his trademark fuzzy guitar textures - thrown in. It's that hybrid sound that he explores on Grand Bal, flitting between horror movie soundscapes (the John Carpenter-esuqe '68'), 'cold wave' workouts ('Vice', the ghostly 'La Live'), fractured ambient ('Lightnin') and intense, noisy and insanely weighty industrial slammers ('Loic').