- Tripping techno to hypnotise dance floors.
- The most interesting techno often dwells at the style's fringes, but the last few weeks have seen three key outlets release some of the more daring EPs of recent months. First there was Ostgut Ton and Barker's Debiasing, a techno EP without a kick drum. Then there was Abby Echiverri's Ab Initio EP for The Bunker New York, which presented a disintegrating blend of techno, electro and acid best suited to intimate dance floors. Tresor, another prominent label, comes with its own adventurous release, the Magnet EP by Marcelus.
Few labels of Tresor's stature would put a track like "Magnet" on the A1. A snakecharming bleep sequence sparkles above a kick drum that darts around the grid, the disjointed groove struggling to stay in time. It'll take a skilled DJ to make this work at a club, but the results will be utterly psychedelic when they do. "Parenthesis" and "Say It Again" are more straightforward, both anchored to steady four-on-the-floor kick. "Descent" is somewhere in between experimental and functional, as bleeps bubble like boiling water while the soft kick drum keeps time. It's great to hear another high-profile techno EP that looks beyond a dance floor's more simple needs.
TracklistA1 Magnet
A2 Parenthesis
B1 Say It Again
B2 Descent