Tresor Germany Vinyl & CDs

Review: To mark the album's 20th birthday, Drexciya's most melodious and perfectly formed full-length has been remastered and reissued. 'Harnessed The Storm' has consistently been cited as one of 'the greatest IDM albums of all time' since its release, and we'd have to agree with that assessment - even if you could argue it's really an electro album. Deep, atmospheric and melodious, it's arguably the perfect distillation of the pair's distinctive sound, style and ethos. Certainly, it contains a swathe of absolute gems, including the robust and otherworldly club electro of 'The Plankton Organization', 'Dr Blowfin's Black Storm Stabilising Spheres', the heart-aching musical melancholy of 'Birth of a New Life' (recorded shortly before Drexciya member James Stinson surprisingly passed away) and the gorgeous 'Digital Tsunami'.

Review: Drexciya released a lot of seminal work during their tenure, but Neptune's Lair was when James Stinson and Gerald Donald built upon the conceptual depth of their project across an album format for the first time. Released in 1999 on Tresor, the album still sounds leagues ahead of the pack if you think in terms of electro, but to be honest that simple genre tag feels a little reductive at this point. Drexciya were consummate world-builders and they proved this beautifully across achingly beautiful tracks like 'Andreaen Sand Dunes' and 'Polymono Plexusgel', while they still brought serious amounts of funk to 'Habitat of Negative', 'Surface Terrestrial Colonization' and 'Oxyplasmic Gyration Beam'. A perfect album given a proper 'special edition' reissue treatment on CD.

Review: In recent years, David Sumner's music as Function has tended towards the dark, lo-fi, industrial and minimal. "Existenz", his first solo album in six years, is an altogether more melodious, thoughtful and ear-catching affair. Of course, there are still some suitably mangled, mind-altering club cuts on show - see the buzzing, shape-shifting heaviness of "Ertrinken", the spaced-out hypnotism of "Kurzstrecke" and the Berghain-ready "Vampire" - but these largely play second fiddle to more playful and tuneful expressions of electro, Detroit style techno, dreamy fusions of deep house and early UK style tech-house, and ambient cuts so lovely you'll want to bathe in them. He even makes room for a couple of vocal collaborations with Robert Owens. It all adds up to a stunning set that's undoubtedly one of the most instantly arresting techno albums of the year.

Review: 'The Cosmic Memoirs Of The Late Great Rupert J Rosinthrope' is an obscure rarity by a short-lived alias of Drexciya member James Stinson, Shifted Phases, which is now getting the full, refocused reissue treatment by German clubbing giant Tresor. Having remained out of print since its initially tiny release for over two decades, this bubbly yet grim electro album reflects an epistolary concept expressed musically rather than in written form. Rupert J. Rosinthrope is a mysterious character, but these cosmic memoirs hopefully shed at least some light on "his" misunderstood memory.