Wu Wei vinyl

The Great Empty Circle label launches with a 12" from Funk E, a Romanian producer who's been plying his trade on various imprints since 2012. To date, his material has largely stuck to the German techno blueprint, with powerful rhythms offset by minimal-influenced textures and late night electronics. A-side "Wu Wei" continues in this vein, with intricately programmed, rolling percussion and occasional bursts of downbeat melody tracking an impressively addictive bassline. "Drumu Starii" flips the script slightly, pairing the producer's usual locked-in rhythms with yearning vocal samples and "Deep Burnt" filter chords. The result is a track that blends the melodic, soul-flecked idealism of deep house, with the metronomic rhythms of techno.