- There's really few better places for actual, honest-to-god minimal these days than Sender Records. Listening to the label's forthcoming Benno Blome-mixed From Antenna to Antenna 1 compilation is like getting to a club far too early and hearing a deferential warmup DJ steal the show by expertly blending faceless techno.
Any of the four tracks on Misc.'s latest EP, Sinus Hotel would fit right at home in such a set. 'Fassade Noir' is bleep that might even make Sleeparchive jealous, 'Staroulette' splashes aqueous dub techno in the face with some cold water, and 'Frank Around the Corner' beautifully nestles the squeak of a slowing pendulum into the pocket.
It's 'Dance Your Name,' however, that proves why Christopher Bleckmann and Hannes Wenner are such well-regarded names. Building from a simple loop of tattered phonemes, the duo throw just about everything they have against the wall by track's end. Over its seven minutes, it gradually becomes a maelstrom of synthetic steel drums, snipped scissors, static washes and a bassline straight out of the Acid 101 textbook.
It's a less manic sort of track that Akufen used to specialize in – composed as it is of scraps of sound that would never make sense alone – but it's also something else entirely. That's the genius of Bleckmann and Wenner, though: just when you think
it's simply faceless techno, you look up six minutes later and realize that you're a long way from where you started.
TracklistA1 Fassade Noir
A2 Staroulette
B1 Frank Around The Corner
B2 Dance Your Name