- It's been quite a transition for Berlin's Recondite, from the melancholy deep house of his early 12-inches for Plangent, via an album of balmy acid explorations, to the airy and intricately sculpted techno of this EP for Berlin label Dystopian. What binds his work is a certain lightness of touch. All four tracks on EC-10 are built around spinal columns of booming kicks and awash with vast swathes of reverb. But rather than feeling harsh and metallic, the echoes are round-edged and finely detailed, more cathedral than warehouse.
Either way, "Libria" sounds as though it's been devoid of human life for quite some time, its core rhythm joined by water droplets leaking from pipes and the sinister rattle of wind whipping through the rafters. "Cleric" stirs the same textural palette into Sandwell District-alike peak time techno, all escalating walls of hiss and a glistening lead melody. The title track is a marvelous bit of large-room precision engineering, ebbing and flowing across eight minutes as a chorus of metallic clangs slides around the mix like an isolated bead of mercury.
TracklistA1 Libria
A2 Cleric
B1 EC10
B2 Equilibrium