Ranges Vinyl & CDs

Review: We're not yet familiar with FM therapy as a psychotherapeutic modality, but we'd sure as hell like to try it. Producer Elias, welcomed for the first time here to the Ranges label, offers up a sampler of this as yet esoteric, but sure-to-become-popular aural masseuse's technique. Admittedly, it doesn't sound far off dub techno; opening with the rainsoaked, padded piner 'Aquatic', it's as if we've entered a parlour doubling up as a humid human greenhouse, with palm plants on the inside and a backlit rainforest vista on the outside. Follow-ups 'Red Lantern' and 'Severe' go further into the dub techno mode, but the latter is especially interesting for its fusion with jukey sonics; finally, the titular 'FM Therapy' rounds things off with a neat return to crackle and ricochet.

Review: The Ranges label has really found its, yep, range over the course of its first dozen or so relies and this 15th is another gem. It is a return to the imprint for Hydergine who once again draws on a rich vein of dub techno history and reworks it into his own new rhythms and arrangements. The opener is a classically infused sound to get things going and after 'Entangle' there are more broken beat patterns to 'Spectrum' and a pulsing sense of edgy undercurrent to 'Introspection.' 'Perception' is the most sparse of the lot and also gets a Resoe remix that has deft synths darting about the mix.

Review: German dub techno tomahawks Ranges celebrate ten years of operation, this latest 2xLP drawing on the talents of eight core artists who've helped chisel their niche. Contributions from JS Zeiter, Ixm, Merv, Federsen, Submoon, Gradient, Ohm & El Choop and Tm Shuffle cover a broad gamut, from meditative and immersive atmospheres to rolling, floor-focused grooves. Best among the crock, in our estimation, has to be Merv's tube-ricocheting 'Artifacts', with its filtered chords resounding in a filtered space of tinny but desirous compulsion, and Gradient's 'Endorphin', whose minimal groove is irresistible when paired with the mythic synth at its core, an impossible Galt's Motor of sound.