Juno Recommends Techno: November 2022

Review: Hard to believe, but it's 25 years since after the emergence of Steve O'Sullivan's dub moniker, and now Lempuyang has the honour of presenting the first full length album of all-new material. Over the span of nine tracks, Steve takes us on a version excursion, exploring a mixture of dub rhythms alongside a healthy dose of wizardry to work the floor. Featuring collaborations from Hidden Sequence, Another Channel, and vocals from Prince Morella. Strictly for connoisseurs - and yet utterly essential!

Review: As Hessle Audio toast 15 years of outstanding contributions to the mutation of modern club music, the label's rough and ready boy wonder Pangaea comes through with a record that beautifully sums up why they continue to do such damage to soundsystems the world over. 'Fuzzy Logic' is a hulking beast of advanced techno pressure, with a psychedelic swirl of bleeps to keep the head tripping even as the drums pound you senseless. It's a mighty demonstration of brains and brawn in equal measure, and a stern reminder of why Hessle remain so vital after all this time.

Review: 'Emotive techno' eschews the term ambient techno on this new archival release from Nuron and Fugue, figureheads of the '90s subscene that took the world by storm. Lifted from archives of DAT tapes that were, as the story tends to go, inevitably found in some attic somewhere, these tracks are nostalgia-tinged jams that carry with them the hiss and saturation of 1993; but of course, stylistically, they belong in 2993. Nuron's 'Interior World' is a scratchy and restless early highlight, while Fugue's 'Contapoint' has a proto-dubsteppy angularity seeping off it.

Review: After two utterly essential releases on ae Recordings and Primary Colours in 2021, Altone once more delivers the goods for Lempuyang. The label's eighth release brings together two of the most respected heads in the business on remix duties. Altone's deep & pulsing title track 'Vortex' gets Yagya's glacial treatment on the A-side. 'Customization' on the flip gets a Bluetrain rework; with Steve's trademark Special Edition Dub giving the track a dancefloor edge.

Review: With 'Universe Speaks', Reggie Dokes is at the helm of the third release for Still Techno. He is one of the best (and one of our favorite) producers to come out of Detroit and his discography is as massive as his own legendary label Psychostasia Recordings. It is rare for Reggie to drop four deep techno tracks on one serving but here we are. All tracks featured on 'Universe Speaks' are an ode to the dancefoor and Detroit, where melodies, jazz, percussions and real electronic music collide to create a new and subtile soundscape.

Review: Dutch legend Stefan Robbers returns under his Terrace moniker which he has operated under for over three decades. On the Cocoonings EP, he presents four tracks that remain pure to his strong Motor City techno and electro influences. Opening with the deeply evocative cut 'Janeiro Joy' which will hypnotise you by way of subtle dub techno elements, followed by the complex futurist beats of 'Bass Star' that's equally emotive. Over on the flip, more hi-tech soul awaits you on the tough broken-beat fueled affair 'Seismic Space'.

Review: During the early-to-mid 1990s, Nurmad Jusat released a string of now sought-after singles on Likemind that showcased an emotive, far-sighted take on techno that still sounds timeless all these years on. This fine collection features various recordings he made - but never released - as Nuron and Fuge back in 1993 and '94. As inspired by the techno sounds of his native UK as the far-sighted brilliance of purist Detroit techno and the dreamy soundscapes of Larry Heard, it's a genuinely brilliant collection of long-lost gems. Our picks include the subtly clonk-influenced opener 'The Coded Message', the skewed deep electro shuffle of 'Another Way', the sci-fi techno brilliance of 'Contrapoin (First Version)' and the out-there ambient soundscape that is 'Dialectic Confusion'.

Review: He may be based in North Carolina, but Max Ravitz AKA Patricia used to live in New York and has family ties to both Chicago and Detroit. It's these links that perhaps best explain the sound of his Acid Test debut, Less Than Seven, which packages up a variety of Mid-Western and NYC influences into one coherent, TB-303-driven package. He eases us in gently via the sturdy but hypnotic beats, squelchy acid lines and ambient chords of 'At a Gallop', before pitching things up on the dub-flecked Motor City techno roller 'Head Gap Width'. He explores the more melodious and psychedelic end of the acid spectrum on the hallucinatory but surprisingly beautiful 'Winding To The Side', while 'Coffee Computer' sits somewhere between sparse and deep acid house and crunchy electro.

Review: Stepping up with his first new material since the Monobox album in 2021, Detroit's minimal master Robert Hood is back with a heavy-hitting two track 12" on M-Plant. 'Hectic' is indeed the word as he fires off blasts of siren-like synths over a crushing rhythm section, pitched keenly at peak time and giving an upwards thrust in all the right places. 'Amazon Dust' gets a touch trippier with its circular bell tones and low frequency rumblings, but it's no slouch in the energy department either. The experience and instinct oozes out of this record - as if we'd expect anything less from such a legend of techno.

Review: Something of an all-star EP this, featuring as it does cuts from a trio of new-school deep house, ambient techno and psychedelic breakbeat heroes. The central figure is the mighty Roza Terenzi, who not only offers up a fine solo cut - the chunky, wonky, tactile, bass-heavy breakbeat house headiness of 'Gush', which offers a perfect balance between hallucinatory sounds and weighty dancefloor grooves - but also joins forces with long-time pal D Tiffany on the mind-mangling, percussively skittish techno oddity that is 'Prude Pride'. The other key operative is rising star Byron Yeates, who supplements the neo-trance bounce of 'Cauldron of Chaos' with a sturdy, forthright and all-action rework of Ternzi's 'Gush'.

Review: In 1735, Swedish scientist Carl Linneaus theorised the hierarchical classes of the natural world, paving the way for modern taxonomy as we know it. In tributary fashion, 012 Records, hailing from Berlin, present the second edition of 'Systema Naturae II', an EP series dedicated to Linnaeus and nature. Dub techno tropes, bioorganic ambient tones and knocks and delays abound.

Review: Evigt Morker is one of the foremost names in techno emanating from the global North, and just as fittingly, the cuts on this new EP from the Swedish camp, Northern Electronics, sound like ice floes or hollow glaciers resonating inside machine silos. Seamlessly moving from one idea to the next over the course of four tracks - all at the same tempo, that is - tracks like 'Ett Okant Sprak' really do sound somewhat glassy, spatial and tundric, like lost alien technology frozen in prehistoric ice or amber, having just thawed.

Review: Techno wizard Rambal Cochet, aka the one and only Volta Cab, teams up with the fast emerging Italian label Spaziotempo with four cuts that showcase the best of the often overlooked ambient techno sound. Pristine ambient pads with subtle, yet effective. techno drum patterns that take a back seat to other attractions - like the blaring saw synths on 'Underwater Armour' and the vocal harmony on 'Tidal Types'. 'Ambientica' employs a slightly old-school and dreamy feel, with 'East Block' featuring a breezy groove that was essential to soundscapes of techno past.

Review: Having blazed a trail through labels like Suara, Modularz and Liberta in the past couple of years, Klint lands on Planet Rhythm for their first physical release to date, and they've brought the goods to match the occasion. 'Titane' is a consummate slice of banging, loopy techno with some Robert Hood-influenced synth lines keeping the mood tense and driving. 'Sauvage' leans in on atmosphere building with cavernous sound design wielded with precision. 'Perc' keeps things simmering with a deeper cut to open up the B side, and 'Leo' creates a powerful braintwister to take you deep inside on a subliminal ride.

Review: While Daniel Avery's earlier LPs were deemed by the artist to be dissociative exercises - either working in dance or ambient escapism - his new album 'Ultra Truth' faces up fearlessly to life. Through mega washed out and blurred breaks and, it's the sonic expression of Avery "staring into the fire" of life, however dreamy and indistinct the experience of it may be, and living mindfully, completely in the body he finds himself housed in and controlling. Of course, dance music is embodied music, so we're more than blown away by this representation; Avery pulls it off by going in a direction we've not heard him move in before.

Review: DJ Bone has made time to put together his first EP in four years for London institution fabric. The Black Market EP is an exciting project which illustrates the newly created fabric Originals label. Opening up with the powerful high tech soul epic 'Rising' which will have you reaching for the lasers, A2 cut 'Fulmination' is full impact techno with a hypnotic melody that's sure to move the mind and body. Over on the flip, there's the welcome addition of liquid drum n' bass cut 'Power Of The Free' which is not something we've heard from the Motor City veteran until now, but fitting considering his back-to-back sets with legend Goldie in recent times.

Review: Dutch hypnotic techno engineer Ruben Uvez aka Konduku is back on Delsin's ever reliable Mantis series with more of his idiosyncratic takes on the style. He's typically off-kilter on the mesmerising opener 'Trail', then gets further off the grid with the sonar transmissions of 'Lust' followed by the experimental dub of 'Lavender'. Over on the flip, descend into freefall on the droning slow burn of 'Dalgin' followed by the slow poke of 'Helles' incorporating entrancing tribal rhythms.