- Alessandro Adriani's Mannequin Records recently started hosting nights at Säule, Berghain's newest dance floor. The label's bread and butter is DIY '80s sounds like coldwave, darkwave, EBM, post-punk, minimal and countless other variants, but Adriani is increasingly working with techno. Blending his esoteric roots with the needs of Berlin dance floors, A Martyr's Death finds a natural home on Jealous God. Where much modern techno leans to clinical execution and negative space, this EP is claustrophobic and overheated. It sounds like the grinding fare that Kobosil blasts out on the main floor at 120 dB.
"Harvest" and "Prehistory" are cut from the same cloth. Behind the twisting synth loops lie cunningly deployed sweeps of effects that creep out of the murk. It's madness-inducing stuff that powers forward on an amphetamine cocktail of anxiety, delirium and ungodly energy. "Death & Rebirth" is shorter but more detailed. Dubbed-out tails of vocal menace like prowling ghosts while the lead synth figure recalls a bass guitar preset from an '80s-era digital synth. Many techno producers are infatuated with these '80s aesthetics, but Adriani's knowledge of its origins away from the dance floor make A Martyr's Death a more convincing hybrid than most.
TracklistA1 Harvest
B1 Prehistory
B2 Death & Rebirth