- Par Wax's sixth release, Man No Shadow, collects a pair of tracks each from label boss George Paar (AKA Jorge Castillo) and Yuji Kondo. Castillo offers up his usual droning, wall-of-sound techno—meaning it should take about five seconds to separate the fans from the detractors. "Modern Inception" is more restrained, with its interplay of bass swells and distant, echo-laden treble, and more interesting, thanks to an off-kilter sense of dynamics and layering. "Dwelling In Ignorance" quickens the pace, but it's missing the subtlety that makes all the difference in this particular niche.
For me, this record's main draw is Kondo, a Japanese producer with past appearances on Semantica and Perc Trax. He employs a more avant-garde approach to techno, often conjuring thick shrouds of nerve-wracking noise to layer atop his sulking rhythms. His two tracks here are as spooky as they are compelling. "Indefinitely Discreet" is the more abstract effort, and as the name might imply, a more subdued one, too. It lurches back and forth across two kicks per bar, its open space filled with sinister atmospherics and indecipherable whispers. "Know Where," with a crackling 4/4 kick and a two-note siren teetering on the offbeat, surges closer to peak-time territory—but like the rest of this record, it's the sort of stuff that will likely fit only on the darkest of dance floors.
TracklistA1 George Paar - Modern Inception
A2 George Paar - Dwelling In Ignorance
B1 Yuji Kondo - Indefinitely Discreet
B2 Yuji Kondo - Know Where