Back catalogue: Techno (All)

Review: Brussels-based DJ Hadone serves up his most ambitious musical statement to date with What I Was Running From., which also serves as a glimpse at what his immersive label project Things We Never Did' is all about. All nine tracks blend contemporary techno with various parts from subgenres and make for richly emotive soundscapes that are more than just functional DJ fodder. On 'Sonar' he joins up with Asking for a thrilling and dread fuelled minimal jungle stepper while 'Nobodies Oscillation' is pure euro-dance madness. Other highlights include the irresistibly emotional 'A Key To The Shadow'.

Review: Detroit house hero Kyle Hall returns with his biggest project in some time in the form of Transmissions, a new double album on his own well-regarded Forget The Clock. All six tracks have enigmatic, functional titles and the music is as idiosyncratic as ever. Each one veers more towards techno than is Hall's usual style, with pulsating synth lines and tight, dusty drum tracks making for stripped-to-the-bones grooves. Later on, things grow ever more abstract with twisted acid lines screwing their way through the increasingly ragged and roughshod drums. These are perfectly imperfect jams from a master of the form.

Review: Per Hammar and Berlin-based label Sushitech are a match made in heaven as both have long since proven their credential in the world of dub techno. As the label turns 20, it kicks off its year with an album that has been two years in the making and features a top-quality array of dub techno sounds. Malin Genie features on two of the more kicking and propulsive cuts, while Jannik Jivung adds an organic touch to two more. In between those sounds are percolating slow-mo jams like 'Representant Dubb' and more kinetic sounds like 'TX Files' with its fresh kicks and rolling bass.

Review: The now 20-year-strong Sushitech have been working on this one for two years and finally it drops - a new album from cultured dub techno don Per Hammar. This is a seriously deep journey into his signature sound that melds the genre's most classic side with a fresh modern twist. Cuts like 'Generation Drive' have a nice crisp sense of motion as well as lovely warped pads, while 'Juvial' brings a sense of curiousness with its undulating drums and bass. 'Defender' leans into sleek techno styles and will have you cruising in no time. An instant classic album, for sure.

Review: Having built plenty of hype over previous outings, Hardacre finally drops this long-awaited debut on Alien Communications. It's a standout long player with acid, house, electro and techno all jumbled up into effective, 'floor-facing sounds that are high on power. There are lithe, metallic twitchers like the Kraftwerkian 'Transmission' as well as more future-facing and acid-laced bumpers such as 'Alien Intelligence' with plenty of cinematic and atmospheric bits like 'Radio Command' in between. A classy take on a classic sound.

Review: Released on lovely transparent blue vinyl, the fourth volume of Figure's Hardspace series offers six fresh reinterpretations of Len Faki's favourite tracks under his staunchly underground Hardspace alias. Josh Wink's 'Sixth Sense' gets a powerful low-end rework while Aoki Takamasa's minimalist dub transforms into a high-energy and peak-time slammer. DJ Yoav B's iconic 'Energize' reaches new rave heights with its relentless groove and Huxley's dark take on 'Weapon 3' comes on with explosive force. Tuttle's 'Function' ups the intensity with Faki's signature claps and sirens while Mike Parker's '90s classic 'Shakuhachi Two' gains extra drive with Hardspace's propulsive percussion for a dynamic techno workout.

Review: Hardspace is an alias of Len Faki, the renowned techno player and longtime Berghain associate. During Covid he reconnected with his studio and really got to grips with it on all new levels and that shows in the work he has put out since. This project is about adding his own spin to his favourite tunes, tweaking them for his own DJ sets and making older cuts sound right and function well on modern dancefloors. From the loop, thudding house of his take on Sound Stream to stripped back 90s techno sounds from Andrei Morant via the brain frying synth texture and unrelenting grooves of DJ Rush's 'Don't You Love Me,' this is a fine collection for any DJ.

Review: Detroit dub techno don Luke Hess says that this is his "most eclectic and techno-driven album to date" and that it blends together his signature subterranean sounds with his indelible Motor City touch. It again works well on cultured dance floors but is also a deeply spiritual album that will have your mind wandering to some lovely places. From the opening moments of 'Dokimion' you're sunk into widescreen soundscapes that pair painterly synths with immersive low ends. Cuts like 'Stoicheo' bring serene melodies and closer 'Hiketeria' is a misty, foggy cut that oozes late-night intimacy.

Review: Is there a more vital label in all of underground electronic music than FXHE? It never ceases to amaze us how Omar S manages to put out so much music of such high quality, mostly of his own making, but also from plenty of satellite producers he lures under his wing. This time we're treated to a rare full-length from someone other than the boss as the Motor City's Hi Tech duo step up with a raw ghettotech workout. These are sleazy tracks with raw production, bumping basslines, high-speed rhythms and plenty of rapped vocals packed with juke and footwork attitude.

Review: Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being is one of the most fearless experimentalists in house and techno. He confronts dancefloor disillusionment head-on with Dance Music 4 Bad People, his raw, uncompromising debut for Smalltown Supersound. A veteran of Chicago's club scene, Moss channels four decades of history, highs, lows and trauma into an album that defies escapism. These are not crowd-pleasers but cathartic confrontations dense with abrasive synths, molten drum loops and uneasy textures which all crash together in chaotic, transcendent layers. There's no clean resolution anywhere, instead just tension, dissonance and moments of stark beauty. Far from a nostalgic Windy City love-in, Moss' music reflects a dance culture in crisis and provides a place to rage against it.

Review: Chicago extraordinaire Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being's third solo album is titled There Is No Acid In This House, and sees him return to Soul Jazz Records. Using his idiosyncratic electronic sound, Moss takes influence from the experimental minds of fellow Windy City innovators such as The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra, through to icons of his hometown's house music scene like Ron Hardy, Marshall Jefferson, Lil Louis and others who have defined Chicago's musical universe over the last half a century.

Review: The inimitable Jamal Moss comes forth with his second offering for Madrid's Apnea records. 'The Moon Dance' unfurls over 11 tracks- in turns pensive, elegiac, and slammin'. Between the sedate expanse of opener 'When The Earths Shadow Falls On The Moon' and the final cymbal strokes of gauche, machine funk closer 'Mawu', Moss lifts us on yet another Afrofuturist space flight of fancy, passing through superclusters of deep house, tactile techno and stroboscopic piano jams along the way.
Standout moments include the smoove-as-u-like-it intergalactic lounge jazz diversion 'The Moondance Moon Walk Version'; its steezy stride-piano vamp seamlessly intertwining with Moss' signature babbling acid intrusions, the irresistibly groovy bump of 'Tethered 2 The Divinely Spaces With In' and the hypnotic sway of 'Celestial Poems Of The Lady With 10000 Names', which opens up from Terrence Dixon-esque introspection into broad windy city string washes and synapse-tickling bleeps. With this collection, Moss pens yet another crucial chapter in the seemingly bottomless hieroglyphic being scroll. While 'The Moon Dance' is one of his most accessible and harmonious works to date, it doesn't lose an ounce of the rawness and immediacy of his previous work. Essential listening!

Review: Hats off to Jamal Moss for the tongue-in-cheek title of his latest album as Hieroglyphic being, which is naturally another pleasingly wild, freewheeling, imaginative and out-there excursion in his now trademark style. It sees him sprint between mutant electronic jazz ('Circumploar'), out-there analogue techno ('21 Days'), organ-rich post-beatdown chuggers ('Foreboding Self Pleasure'), reverb-laden ambient soundscapes ('A Dream Within a Dream', 'Delta Opus L'), industrial-strength dancefloor weirdness ('The Prograde Direction'), sub-heavy lo-fi deep house ('Black Love On An Early Sunday Morning'), sparse electronic future funk ('Future Shocked'), and jacking, sci-fi seeped brilliance ('The Andromeda Strain'). In other words, it's another excellent collection from one of dance music's genuine geniuses.

Review: It's been seven years since Holden's debut album The Idiots Are Winning was released on his own Border Community imprint, and in that time new material has been scarce to say the least. Thankfully, The Inheritors was well worth the wait; produced with a combination of Holden's extensive analogue modular system and his own self-coded software, the album takes in influences as wide as The KLF, Elgar, ceilidh music, pentatonic folk scales and ancient pagan rituals, with each track recorded in one take with no overdubs. Border Community cohort Luke Abbott's Holkham Drones album would be the closest comparison, but even that superb record doesn't come close to the sprawling marvel that is The Inheritors, with highlights like the jazz sax of "The Caterpillar's Intervention" and twisting analogue techno of "Gone Feral" coming thick and fast.

Review: This archival release on Organic Analogue digs back into the prolific '90s period of Swedish techno maverick Jean-Louis Huhta, aka Dungeon Acid. These days he releases on iDEAL, Fit Sound, Borft and Klasse Wrecks, but he cut his techno teeth on labels like Hybrid, Svek and H. Productions. Clad in artwork details by Swedish graffiti legend Nug, Wormhole Of Time comprises unreleased cuts and long out-of-print jams spanning many of Huhta's aliases. The release also comes with a zine featuring photographs and an interview reflecting on Huhta's multifarious life in music.