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Review: Kaiserdisco bring some big room techno energy to the one label in the world that is most synonymous with that sound - Adam Beyer's Drumcode. Opener 'In The Music' is a dark and driving cut with an acid tinged bassline over hard, hammering, flat footed drums. Add in a dark vocal hook and you have a real monster. 'Error In The System' on the flip is another moody techno pumper for the main room with hefty drums, eerie siren sounds and of plenty squelchy designs. It's a real headwrecker to close out a big 12".

Review: Befitting of the label's name, Drumsauw aka. Joseph Sutherland keeps to the Code with a fresh three-tracker of megatechno heaters. Starting things off with the entraining but no less driving dreamer 'Focus', we're met with riveting sixteenthy knocks and dour breakdowns, a formula devoutly followed throughout; the B offers up two further alarmist pummellings of the third kind, with 'Set Back' repeatedly jabbing the podiatric floor with pressurised weight-kicks and offhand "push it" voxxes, and 'Escape' continuing to sound said alarm while insisting that we "escape" the laboratory, now quarantined to sift out those hesitant to dance.

Review: Adam Beyer's Drumcode remains out in front of the pack when it comes to big room techno. Whether going to new school artists or old school legends the results are always the same - epic and explosive. This time out we get both on one EP with Teenage Mutants going first with 'Dark Clouds (feat Heerhorst & Peter Pahn). It has synths fired from a hadron collider as they shoot over the face of the acid and bass-laced drums. On the flip side is the mighty Slovakian Umek with 'Footmachine,' a dark and heavy banger with flat-footed drums and all sorts of cosmic synth turbulence. Potent stuff for sure.

Review: Adam Beyer's notable techno label Drumcode seems to be as busy as ever of late. The label here rolls out a fourth part of its ongoing A Sides series, which is now up to volume 12. Though the Swede himself doesn't feature, some of his trusty sidemen do starting with Chris Avantgarde who brings big room, hard techno energy to 'The Last Time'. Bry Ortega keeps it just as intense with the machine-gun like synth fire of 'Discover 9', Massano brings some brighter synth loops to the stomping 'Betraya' and Spektre shut down with a mix of hardcore, trance and techno potency on 'Too Far Gone.' Some great DJ weaponry here, for sure.

Review: The big room techno don that is Adam Beyer is back with more potent techno weaponry on his own Drumcode label, this time with part two of the 12th volume of his A-Sides series. His 'Take Me There' is first up in remix form and Carl Cox flips it into a surging peak time roller. Matt Guy's 'Give Me What I Want' is an emotive banger with big synth energy and reverberating vocals while ADHS's '2STEP' hits hard with its flaming drums and trance-y synths. Kaiserdisco then brings dark, stomping warehouse energy to their raved-ready 'Get On The Dancefloor.'

Review: Adam Beyer's esteemed Drumcode resurfaces this week with the next installment in the A Sides series. We're already up to Vol 11's sixth part, and this one seriously means business. Take for instance Hungarian techno hero Jay Lumen's 'Astronaut' featuring the pummelling cyclicality of its muscular bassline that's reinforced by truly visceral kicks. Elsewhere, Dutchman LAAT (Elevate/Tronic) is sure to have you reaching for the lasers on the steely and acid-inflected power on 'Call Of The Tribes' while the enigmatic Zimmz will properly elevate you to maximum euphoria on the trance-influenced energy of 'Qualia'.

Review: Strap in for another rollercoaster ride through the Drumcode tech-scape as we get an authoritative workout from four essential new talents. First up is Mha Iri, whose 'Bel' centres around a catchy vocal hook and darkly seductive synth snarls, before Marco Faraone nods back to some classic Wildchild and locks it to a steely pulse. Balthazar & JackRock offer up something epic on the B-side with the towering electro house synth touches of 'Andromeda', and LO'99 links up with Ray Foxx to round the record out with the playful vocal hiccups and undulating big room groove of 'Skydance'.

Review: Drumcode's Elevate series hits a third instalment here and this time it is a three tracker with solo cuts from three big names. Tini Gessler kicks off with 'Nothing Expected' which is a teeth-gritting and white knuckle techno roller. Marie Vaunt serves up monstrously large and slamming kicks on 'Technology' and then runs them through with brutal synth lines that spray about with their own dark energy. It's a truly edgy cut before BEC's 'Humanoid' layers up hard tech drums that slam down firmly with a warped lead which leads you late into the night. A trio of high impact weapons, for sure.

Review: Gavin Harris, otherwise known as Eli Brown, has been on the fast track to the premier league, big-budget stadium tech over the past five years, snapped up by Skream on Of Unsound Mind, Toolroom Records, Moon Harbour, Alan Fitzpatrick's We Are The Brave, Lee Foss' Repopulate Mars - the list goes on. After delivering a four-track EP to techno industrial mega complex Drumcode last year, he's back with a not-so-subtle reinterpretation of LFO's iconic bleep techno 'Freak', originally released in 2003 on Warp. If you're craving a smoothed out, reliably rolling version of Mark Bell's masterful, mind-twisting original, look no further.

Review: Drumcode's A Sides series has been a great source of contemporary techno potency and there is no signs of it slowing down yet. This is the second part of the 11th volume and it has three fresh names. Veerus opens up with 'Lights On Me' which is a dark tune with a tense energy and celestial chords keeping you in suspense. Ramiro Lopez then offers the more loopy and hypnotic 'Yo Mas' with its hooky vocals bring an exotic feel. Anna Reusch shuts down with a flat footed stomper that will get your jaws clenched on 'Deeper.'

Review: Techno team-ups don't come bigger than this, as Drumcode's overlord of all things mega-tech Adam Beyer links up with Chicago's agent provocateur Green Velvet to give you your next stadium shaking anthem. This isn't the first time Beyer and Velvet have worked together - you could find them on the 2018 track 'Space Date' for one thing - but there's a sense 'Simulator' will become their calling card as a formidable double act. It's simply huge, catchy as hell and full of all the fireworks you could wish for from a super-sized techno workout, all guided by Velvet's unmistakable voice ducking and diving around the expertly engineered mix.

Review: Layton Giordani hails from New York, and since 2017 he's been nurtured by the Drumcode stable as a reliable source of epic techno for the biggest crowds around. His new release is a short, sharp two-tracker which features two very different offerings from this highly decorated new-wave techno titan. 'Phantom' is a massive, grinding beast driven by full-fat synths, dramatic breakdowns and explosive drops - if you appreciate Drumcode, you know what the deal is. Things get mixed up on the flip as 'Thrillseeker' nudges the tempo up, toys with a nimble rhythm section and pings some tripped out effects and playful sample juggling around the frequency range. It's an intriguing look into the other side of Layton Giordani.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight surface marks ***


Alan Fitzpatrick returns to Drumcode, marking his first appearance since late 2016 when he remixed Moby's hit "Porcelain".The release opens with "Brian's Proper Dun One", a track which caused a storm on his Twitter profile when he first started playing it last year. Loaded with sharp and pounding drums, this is a no holds barred, certified main room anthem! "Wait A Second" has been getting a lot of play on Drumcode Radio of late. This rave inspired track takes a raw, stripped back approach and delivers a killer blow. Alan sampled the vocals of MC r1bbz from an LTJ Bukem tape pack from the early 90s and the record tips its cap to early jungle raves around the M25. The release closes with "Trance, Init?" a homage to Fitzpatrick's days as a raver before he became a DJ. The breakdown is sure to be a hands in the air moment at festivals all over the globe this summer.