- The Berghain resident opens up with an album of occasionally lighthearted but always functional techno.
- For a long time, it seemed like Marcel Dettmann was destined to be the austere yin to Ben Klock's playful yang. Klock, the smiley, affable one with a collection of house records. Dettmann, the East Berlin EBM enthusiast. Dueling profiles from the mid-2010s capture this dynamic perfectly: Klock drinks champagne on private jets; Dettmann eats DDR chocolate and drives his interviewer around Berlin. But if you've been following Dettmann's trajectory since, he's been pursuing a makeover, from his Dekmantel Selectors compilation showcasing the lighter side of industrial, to his Tangerine Dream-indebted contribution to the Matrix Resurrections soundtrack. The days of his Viking-esque, imposing figure have been chiseled away, revealing what Andrew Ryce called, a "goofy, almost cuddly image." Fear Of Programming, his first proper LP since 2013 isn't cuddly, per se, but it's filled with soft touches of brightness, stretching his industrial-influenced sound is across house, ambient and techno frameworks.
If you want to hear what this sounds like in action, "Suffice To Predict'' is a good place to start. It features the album's first kick drum—a big, brash one, at that—but it's softened with a muted arpeggio that adds a hint of psychedelia and a nearly giddy slapped bassline. He gets even softer on standout track, "Water" with fellow Berghain resident Ryan Elliott on vocals. Following a 12-inch on Elliot's Faith Beat label earlier this year, he leans into his housier tendencies as delicate synths and a slow, rolling rhythm contrast perfectly with the over-the-top lyrics that sound like a middle schooler's Valentine's Day card ("Give me a sign / maybe that you're mine"; "Me and you / That would be so divine"; "My love burns hot like a fire / not even water can fade this desire"). Elsewhere he leaves techno behind entirely. This isn't totally new territory (check out 2017's dark ambient Rauch), but he goes full homage to '90s ambient on "Reverse Dreams," with its dusty arpeggios and broken chords. It's not all daybreak beauty—he loads the low-end with some threatening hints of sub bass, deep in the mix.
A Dettmann record wouldn't be complete without some brooding techno, and Fear Of Programming's second half is as vintage as they come. Dettmann has never been one to bang it out with the trendy 140-plus BPM crowd, and his tracks here are a reminder of how effective stripped down, steely techno can sound within the 120 to 130 BPM range. "(Batteries Not Included)" and "Tone" are empty portraits from the very fringes of deep space, where minor chords and spooky synth bleeps roll like tumbleweed across cosmic prairies. My favorite club track, ".08 x 12," is maximalist by comparison over a swung beat the synths contract and expand like metallic slinkies moving up-and-down a never-ending M.C. Esher stairway.
Shawn Reynaldo recently argued that techno was on the outs, pointing to how a new generation of Berghain DJs are trotting out different sounds to fight back against the hegemony of the club's history with the genre. And while that is certainly true, it's equally true that Dettmann shows off the versatility that still exists within techno. Far from grayscale caricature, this is a vibrant and varied album proving that one of the genre's superstars has still got it.
Tracklist01. Coral
02. Suffice To Predict
03. Renewal Theory
04. Transport
05. Water feat. Ryan Elliott
06. Pxls
07. Reverse Dreams
08. x12
09. (Batteries Not Included)
10. Picture 2020
11. Selective Dissolution
12. Tone
13. Fear Of Programming