- An up-and-coming crew from Seattle and nearby Tacoma, secondnature have been throwing intimate parties and hosting techno's finest in their hometowns for years. Their affiliates, like Aos and Archivist, are now among the West Coast's most promising techno artists, releasing tracks that blend Northern Electronics-style mysticism with the intensity and precision of labels like Semantica. The latter characteristic is an important reference point for the first release on secondnature's long-awaited label. Oil Panes is austere, detail-oriented techno.
Like the rest of his crew, Fugal writes immersive techno, but he offers less to latch onto. "First Descent" is a lesson in making techno feel tantalizingly out of reach. It's drowning in so much reverb that the kick drum seems to sound from across a canyon, and the chords feel like bursts of compressed air. On "New Autonomy," gravelly, subterranean noises take the place of a conventional melody, which sounds like an idea borrowed from classic Ostgut Ton techno and taken to a new level of severity. On the flip, Fugal gets slippery. The groovy drum beat of "Oil Panes" sounds tribal next to its counterparts, while a gorgeous synth melody flows like a rushing river.
Svreca's remix of "Oil Panes" will likely turn the most heads. Like Fugal, the Spanish producer is a stickler for the small things, making techno that's meant to feed your mind and move your feet. Svreca gets the upper hand by writing for the dance floor a little more directly. The kick hits harder and the melody goes bigger, cranking up all the right elements without losing subtlety. It's the kind of masterful refinement that only comes with time and experience, and the strength of Oil Panes suggest that Fugal and secondnature are well on their way to that.
TracklistA1 First Descent
A2 New Autonomy
A3 Traces
B1 Oil Panes
B2 Oil Panes (Svreca Remix)