Techno (すべて) charts

Review: Tresor is a titanic techno brand that has very much had a large say in how the genre has sounded over the last few decades. The German club and label now welcomes Parisian artist UFO95 into the fold with his Backward Improvement EP which draws on elements of all the genre's many niches from London to Detroit to Berlin. 'Cogitor' is thumping and wried up with warped lines, 'Sexual Tension' has a more seductive sound with a rubbery and funky bassline and 'Fragment' then brings panel-beating loops for peak time showdowns. There is pure sci-fi atmosphere to the bells and the sonorous synths of 'Solar' and 'Gargk' closes down with a glitchy and ambient-laced breakbeat monster. Great variation makes this a useful EP.

Review: Berlin by-way-of Vancouver duo Minimal Violence are up next on the mighty Berlin institution Tresor, which as both a label and club is back with a vengeance. On Phase 3 we've got four stern and austere techno cuts with serious attitude; whether it's the pitch black TBM punishment of opener 'Flatline' featuring Mad Johnny's screaming vocals, the old-school rave mish-mash of 'Cold' (Sex) incorporating classic motifs like Menstasms, breakbeats, whistles and warehouse techno aesthetics, or the extreme noise terror of 'Focus On That Form' on the B-side that veers violently between jungle and gabber. Fierce!

Review: Brunson marks a shift away from his earlier work under the name Acid Jakal, and eases further into his penchant for modular techno experiments. In a roundabout way, his music is influenced by the writings of various psychedelic and bohemian movement pushers such as Timothy Leary; and the result? An empathic hybrid techno powerhouse of an EP, which urges us to love our friends through pulsing beats and raw tops.

Review: Yazzus made a massive impression on us with her last outing in March last year on Mall Grab's Steel City Dance Discs label and now gets a suitable step up to the mighty Berlin techno label Tresor. She manages to lay down some bombastic and elastic rhythms on 'Human Error Processor' which has the kick drums pinging about the mix, before hammering a more searching and militant techno groove on 'Perforated.' There is sleazy and unrelenting energy to the chaotic percussion and synths of 'Metro City Bay Area' and that only gets turned up to 11 for the final outing, 'Three Deities'.

Review: The unstoppable techno juggernaut himself, Robert Hood is back on Tresor with some of that minimal machine music he basically defined back in the 90s. "Master Builder" is a masterclass in proper minimal techno, using a thrifty set of tools to make for utterly immersive, time-slipping techno. The subtly shifted "Sandman Option" mix of the track moves the position of the looping bleeps to create a different groove around the steadfast kick - juggling the two could be a lot of fun for creative DJs. Providing a different flavour on the flip, "Quartz" brings some bolder synth strokes into the mix, winding up with the quintessential Detroit track.

Review: LNS and DJ Sotofett explore a new direction on their latest EP, 'The Reformer,' released on Tresor Records. Moving away from their debut album, the duo fuses digital artifacts, scanner sounds, and vocoder voices with melodic colors that radiate across cold electro landscapes. The opening track, 'Reform,' takes a deep dive into the electro sound, while 'Plexistorm' blends synthesised strings with arpeggiated acidic bleeps. 'Electric Terraforming' uncovers charged energy sources for life on another planet, and '909 The Controller' features washes of dub over a skipping beat, with a slow, rippling melody and percolating synths. The vinyl version includes exclusive locked grooves by DJ Sotofett.

Review: Angela and Daniele are an Italian pair from Naples who work together as Fireground. They turned heads from their first EP Dualism on Tresor in 2021 and have remained with the label since. It is there that they return with what is presumably a new series, Refreshing Part, as this is installment one. They have a frantic and frantic techno sounds rooted in the 90s school of box banging. 'Never Sleep' opens on that manic tip before 'Gaze' is a little more stripped back but no less potent. Elsewhere the caustic textures of 'Into A Diamond' are almost enough make your eyes water.

Review: Legendary Berlin techno label Tresor welcome Oscean for a standout debut EP. Oscean is a collaboration between Argentinian scene-leaders Sebastian Galante, also known as Seph, and Andres Zacco. They bring a propulsive sound and dense arrangements across the four cuts. Each one moves fast, with 'Feral' having scraping textures and rubbery drums racing onwards, 'Spacion' riding on a supple drum line that bubbles and boils and as a searching synth pans about the mix and 'Austraal' ends in Millsian style with electronic funk buried deep in its bones. It is the scuffed up broken beats of opener 'Spiral' that wins us over the most, though.

Review: Back in 2001, short lived Tresor Berlin sublabel Supremat released Mind Over Positive & Negative Dimensional Matter by Drexciya co-founder James Stinson under his Transllusion moniker. This much needed reissue features all three original tracks. There's the murky electro funk of 'Disrupted Neural Gateway', the minimalist beat dystopia of 'Do You Want To Get Down?' and more ghosts in the machine conjured up on B-side offering 'Power Of The 3rd Brain'. 2022 marked the 20th anniversary of Stinson's untimely passing.

Review: Argentina's Oscean land on Tresor with their latest effort 'Chromium Radiance', a quartet of sonorous, slowly orbiting tracks for the outer reaches. The EP feels deeply at home on Tresor, whose back catalogue it effortlessly channels while navigating the newer more elastic pathways in techno laid by artists such as Mark Fell & Gabor Lazar. The first track is a pensive, nervous sketch for the more introspective hours of the morning, with reese-like pads hanging heavy over skittering grooves, while the second, 'Neon Harmonies' is a perfect accompaniment to watching rain cascade down neon-lit panes, with heartstring-plucking pads and propulsive, SVN-esque subs. 'Blaster Imploder' throws it back with a spell of ruthless hydraulic electro jakk, before 'Echoes Of Chaos' closes things out with a twitchy, haywire big room techno energy calling to mind Regis' early slammers. Seriously versatile and entertaining EP!

Review: Waajeed's Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz came out on Tresor in late 2022 as a definitive statement from a true Detroit original. Following the Motor City Madness remixes 12" which accompanied the album drop, here comes a follow up single shining fresh light on the project via a whole new set of remixes. There's no need to introduce a legend like Mark Broom - a stalwart of UK techno who brings his decades of experience to 'Right Now' as he remains in an enduring purple patch. Staying in the UK but coming from a whole different angle, Yazzus brings her upfront flair to one of the most compelling, emotionally charged pieces on the album, 'The Ballad Of Richard O'Bryant'. Then it's left to Jensen Interceptor and Assembler Code to link up for a remix of 'Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz', complete with some of Black Nix's original poetic flow over the top.