MUSIC RECOMMENDATION

ORGANIC TECHNO

In the 90s, the brand “Kiss Cool” from France launched an ad campaign promoting the double effect of its peppermint sweet: It’s basically what we are experiencing with this EP. First effect: the joy to have a new release from Oslated. Second effect: The joy to have a new release from Laima Adelaide. It’s the “Kiss Cool double effect”. Voilà…

To expand this deep analysis further, it is worth precising that the Kiss Cool effects were linked with the excitation and the freshness of the product: Oslated continues to amaze with its excellent material and Laima Adelaide’s creative musical approach keeps on being next level, with a freshness potentially announced in the title and confirmed by the high quality of production.

ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO

When thinking of Colombia, the first artists who come to mind are Aleja Sanchez, !nertia, Zemög, Launaea and Szórëgg. After the memorable “Dogmatic“, out in January, “Oneiric“, a couple of weeks ago, and the present EP, we can definitely add Hod to our Colombian love board, with a substantial question: what do the local artists eat that makes them so good at creating tribal atmospheric techno? Is it the delicious mega-calorie Bandeja Paisa? The crispy Empanadas? The sweet tomato de Arbol? We’ll test this food out for you, on behalf of science, and we promise: one day, we’ll find out their secret.

TRIBAL TECHNO

Tiferet is an artist that we noticed from his second EP on Reaktivate back in 2018, whose deep and dark cinematic atmospheres totally blew our minds. Coming from Switzerland, he has more than 15 years of experience in production, while having created the project “Tiferet” around 2017. After a first EP on Agos in 2021, he’s now back on the label and under our radars with “Achamoth’s Fall”, a release that gets closer to his minimal background, but which also evokes the work of artists from Hypnus, Feral, Primal Code, as well as from those who nicely contributed to the EP: Rambadu and Forest On Stasys. The vibe is for us slightly less original than what he was producing on Reaktivate, but it is at the same time part of the tribal and organic musical movement that we cherish.

ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO

Vanta is known to be a true hypnotic techno lover in our community, with a massive collection of tracks and a nice sharing attitude. No surprise that he became an active DJ, representing the youth of Leipzig, along with Kontinum. The German city has a strong culture of DJ collectives, thinking of Nebula, Aequalis, PVC, some of which Vanta is involved in. Those are smart projects to get gigs without being a producer, but the frequent contact with the music at one point made him cross the line: Vanta started producing around 2020. His music however never really wowed us, for lacking a certain meaning, and because the sound was either too shy or too harsh. However, when listening back to his material, we noticed a common issue: each time a mastering that doesn’t value his work. The mastering can make a difference, as Sheol just revealed the power of Vanta’s music in the present EP…

ATMOSPHERIC TECHNO

Behind CTAFAD is Sun Dawei, an important artist of the Chinese underground culture, having contributed to its rise firstly as a punk figure, then as a post-punk electronic musician, playing “techno-ized 8bit video game music” (a genre called “chiptune”), with a stage presence reminding Nathan Fake. He also founded Sanshui Music in 2002, which became an important platform for Chinese artists. Two decades in production slowly orientated him to more mature artistic projects, including in the ambient genre. While the punk intensity could still be sensed in his early melodic techno, it became subtler and more hypnotic over the years, as confirmed through his collabs with Laertes, Claudio PRC, Iori and Blazej Malinowski. His rich roots explain the well-designed atmospheres in the present EP, with a great balance between the dark and light poles, for an overall beautiful EP that has lots of character.

MELODIC TECHNO

We still remember Eamo’s fascinating works on Secuencias Temporales and on Melifera Records that we have reviewed in deep. Then, we kind of lost him after he took a sharp turn to the trance music genre, with Beyond Infinity and Underwater Desert. If it explains at least the obvious trancey orientation of his hypnotic techno tracks, with their epic cinematic synth layers, we are happy to see him back in our music genre on Anders Hellberg’s very recognizable imprint CINUS. The label owner and Infinity expanded the colourful journey with remixes that nicely close the musical storyboard.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

In our previous selection, we celebrated the three years of existence of the South Korean label Artscope, which released a superb compilation in two parts for the occasion. Well, no time to clean up the champagne bottles, empty glasses, confetti and serpentines left on the floor as Secuencias Temporales is doing the exact same thing now with “Various Hearts Year Three”. Turn off the light again, bring back the DJ and be ready to shake the booty… 

No, not at all… This would be not knowing what Secuencias Temporales is all about: a very special artistic imprint, dedicated to creating an instant connection to your deepest senses, whispered to your ear with a profound dark and dubby musical language. A party organised by the charismatic temple can only take place in your deepest inner being, not on stage, but keep your body alert, as a roaring sound is slowly growing from the next and last release of our selection…

DANCEFLOOR-ORIENTED

“Anthony Linell”, a name that provokes an instant nostalgia of the golden years of hypnotic techno, governed by the monarchs of the genre, such as Donato Dozzy, Cio D’Or, Mike Parker, Deepbass, Polar Inertia… and Abdulla Rashim… Under this moniker, Linell was known to produce the best loops on the planet and was highly followed by the members of our community. Around 2017, he took a new direction, marked by the dungeon synth ambient album “Consolidate“, followed by similar ones in the next years. His loops on the EPs that came out after 2018 also felt different and we slowly stopped following him. However, “Dissolution Process”, released on Northern Electronics, that he co-owns with Varg, sounds like a providential come-back: we are hoping now that the EP marks a return to the style of compositions that we used to love from him.