Township Rebellion | Marc Holstege – SVT184

Tripping melodic mid-tempo techno and tech-house.

I have a feeling that I became a sucker for something that’s too mainstream with listening to all these Koletzki and Township releases. But I feel like it’s 2008 again and Kalkbrenner is new. Although these releases are from 2016-17, so I’m late to this party. Well, like I was late to the Kalkbrenner party, too, by just stumbling upon him after Berlin Calling came out. And there was Kah-Lo just recently as well. It shows that I’m usually a late adopter for dance music. Except that I’m getting more and more fond of trance, that has to be something different being in a revival time frame. You cannot be late by a few decades. (Or can you?)

Township Rebellion ‎- Vobia

Tripping techno continued today on a long player record format and with some occassional house beats. It’s interesting to hear how the tracks and the whole structure of music is changing when it is intended for an album release. It doesn’t feel like an assembly of single tracks but rather one coherent atmosphere and flow of music. Also, motivational brain juice work music for the day.

Wata Igarashi & Voiski Present WAV – 9719 EP

Definitely one of the best dreamy techno records that I’ve heard this year. It is tripping but still fits a dance floor just fine. Makes me ache for that neon-pierced pitch black box of techno club that we love so much. I miss it badly.

Ten Walls – Lights For The Dreams

At the beginning it totally starts like some Brandt Brauer Frick record, having all those acoustic instruments, drums, guitars, strings, brass instruments, making all those little noises mixed up with the electronics. Then from the third track it goes fully electronic and creates this wonderful, cinematic journey with pulsing techno, ambient soundscapes, and broken beats. It all creates this great flow even though stylistically it’s not the most coherent album. I’m not afraid to say that it could well deserve a spot on my year-end toplist, even if it doesn’t make the Top 10 it could easily sit within the twenty.

nthng – Hypnotherapy

Subsea trip with thumping, soft dub techno and ethereal ambient. Good for chilling, brilliant for work.

On a sidenote: when will this album cover trend stop, I wonder… Photos of parts of stuff so that it looks disturbing. It may have started around Dumb Flesh, but I wouldn’t mind if it stopped.

Tobias – 1972

Four mid-tempo techno tracks from four angles, very different approaches and sounds, what connects them is the trippy feeling of them all. First it’s bouncing back and forth between ears in stereo, then it’s a phaser modulating all over the place, later it takes an epic hallucinogenic journey ala The Orb with a spoken word meditation guide. A more chilled and easy to listen choice for an Ostgut Ton release.

Recondite – Dwell

Techno and house in its rhythms but with a slow tempo and with lots of atmospheric sounds. Beautiful music, too, in a blue and moody sense.

When you put on noise cancelling headphones and listen to this in the middle of a busy city it’s like a movie about a civilization in decay and the meaninglessness of everyday life. The scene when you’re watching them run around in their little useless lives and you already know but they don’t that their fraglie mudball planet is on an all-erasing collision course with a huge asteroid. Could be a soundtrack to Melancholia.

Evigt Mörker ‎- Krona

For the first listen I was hooked on this. For the second listen I found it boring. It’s totally up to mood and state of mind, but it’s a good minimal techno album. Also it shows that it’s a debut, some way to go, but worth keeping an eye on.