Russian producer Gesloten Cirkel’s debut album, Submit X, was last year’s most important long player. This is because it was the first album to connect a wide audience to the dark and grimy acid-techno-electro fusion that has been simmering away for over twenty years on labels like Guy Tavares’ Bunker, its sister Panzerkreuz and Murder Capital. Submit X was not by any stretch of the imagination a polished record, but it did distill much of the raw form energy from and provide some focus to the rough, distorted sound of those labels’ catalogues.
If you were looking for a dominant narrative for the past twelve months forget micro-genres and focus on location, because 2013 pretty much belonged to the Dutch. Granted, the Netherlands has been punching above its weight in electronic music since the 90s, but in 2013 it was hard to avoid their contribution to underground electronic music. Apart from countless Danny Wolfers projects and Delsin reaching their 100th release, there was a flurry of activity from labels like Crème/R-Zone, Photic Fields, M>O>S, Frustrated Funk, and Rush Hour as well as excellent albums from Versalife and Overdose.
Anonymous producer Gesloten Cirkel will make his return with a 12″ for equally enigmatic imprint Berceuse Heroique – stream the results here.
