- Reclaim Your City are a podcast, a label and, as of February 2016, a party. The group is based in Berlin, have a weekly radio show on Rinse FM France and since their inaugural release in 2014, have sought to unite techno capitals across Europe through their compilation series. This latest edition looks to Glasgow and Madrid and features notable locals from each city.
Though he resides in Berlin these days, Héctor Oaks is from Madrid. His "Inherent Speech" is cold, dark, industrial and surging with emotion. It thumps and clangs, but it also has moody, dramatic chord progressions that make it more than another techno banger. Svreca's "Instituto Para El Futuro" is a steady creep through a wind tunnel of noise, which crescendos and pulls back without leaving much of mark.
The Glaswegians serve up more interesting hypnotic fare. Deepbass's track "Futer" has ripples of gurgling bass and a charged choral centre, while "Breathe In Exhale," from Edit Select, pairs intense strings and atmospherics with pounding kicks. The latter might be the most melodramatic effort here. But Madrid_Glasgow 1.0 seems to say little about Madrid or Glasgow specifically. A better way to view Reclaim Your City is as the global network it has become. They're purveyors of underground techno—no matter where it comes from.
TracklistA1 Héctor Oaks - Inherent Speech
A2 Svreca - Instituto Para El Futuro
B1 Deepbass - Futer
B2 Edit Select - Breathe In Exhale