- Impeccable, adventurous techno with a cinematic sense of world-building.
- I first heard Seattle producer tondiue on Peach Discs' Peach Pals Vol. 2 compilation, where their "Turtle Beach" was an obvious highlight: herky-jerky techno with an electro-inspired giddiness. It turns out, that same week, tondiue also released their debut EP, Painted Creature, for secondnature—a label also out of the Emerald City that has counted among my favourite techno imprints since they started in 2016. Befitting a label that has always focused on the more atmospheric and musical side of techno, Painted Creature is more subdued than "Turtle Beach," revealing a gift for pacing and soundstaging that feels like the work of a seasoned producer. Across five tracks, tondiue crafts a gentle, intricate sound that touches on everything from Dozzy-style psychedelia to '90s trance with a grand sense of world-building that makes it more immersive and transportive than your average techno EP.
True to its larger-than-life approach, Painted Creature is one of those rare EPs sequenced as carefully as an album would be. "Frog & Dog" opens up with a long, sprawling intro full of small synth touches and jazzy drumming, more concerned with setting a mood and driving a rhythm. By the time the breakbeat finally enters the picture it sounds distant and aloof, while licks of squelchy acid add lush layers of tactile sound (like the finest of early '90s trance). "tondiue" gets things going with a more straightforward techno drum pattern, but this time it's all about the mallet-like percussion and cascading piano—it sounds like it was conceived for a Fourth World dance floor.
The way the tracks themselves are sequenced is important, too. The title track morphs from a hand percussion workout to a trippy peak-time cut saturated with strange, dubbed-out vocal samples, barely recognizable in the second half. (Also check out more of those hidden-away 303 sounds, which slosh and gurgle like water in the backdrop, a disarmingly three-dimensional effect.) For the true creatures of the night, there's "Magic Animal," whose forward thrust sounds like Goa trance by way of Marco Shuttle, and for the terrace crowd, there's "Sunshowers," which winds down the EP with a slow but ascendent breakbeat track that feels like ascending to the heavens then floating back down again.
There's a clear arc through these five tracks, starting out slow and hip-hop influenced, getting to the grittiest and darkest parts of the night before coming back out the other side completely blissed-out. Along the way, you'll find arresting details, irresistible rhythms and the occasional earworm hook, the kind of dense music that begs you to come back over and over again. Painted Creature is no regular techno EP, and tondiue is no regular producer, which adds up to one of the best debut records I've heard all year.
Tracklist01. Frog & Dog
02. tondiue
03. Painted Creature
04. Magic Animal
05. Sunshower