- Rich and evocative techno with a muscular frame.
- Maedon's Rant & Rave label has lived up to its founder's legacy of rippling, muscular techno. There's also a certain polish and melodic flair to the releases, which include heavy-duty 12-inches from artists like JOEFARR and Codex Empire, that offsets some of the meanness—or at least separates the label from its harder techno peers. The latest release, this time from Lady Starlight, cinches the label's style, pairing blistering kick drums with lush strings and bright, brittle arpeggios.
The EP's standout is "Permain-Triassic," which has the kind of ringing, high-pitched synth loops and fathoms-deep kick drums you'd hear in techno halls across Europe. But it also has a mournful sustain synth running in the end that makes me think of a cross between early B12 and Silent Servant—a distinctively Detroit shade of emotional nuance. The barreling opener "Choose" is a similar study in contrasts, with an ice cream truck melody and more sustain pads floating over a maelstrom of percussion and howling wolves. It feels like it should be over the top, but the track's playfulness (completed by rambunctious tom-tom fills) lends it an addictive swing.
The flipside features shrill brass synths on the aptly named "In A Tizzy," which nods to techno and EBM over a rhythmic skeleton built for shaking the walls at a club like Tbilisi's KHIDI. Choose is rounded off by its gnarliest track, "No Expectations," but even this one is slightly leftfield, as volatile chords stab madly in the dark between a broken kick drum pattern. In other words, it's chaos. Texturally, melodically and rhythmically, Choose is a feast for the techno senses, blending brute force and aesthetic beauty all in one.
Tracklist01. Choose
02. Permain-Triassic
03. In A Tizzy
04. No Expectations