That jazz techno, on the level I expected. Apparently acoustic techno is a thing on last.fm and the top artist is Brandt Brauer Frick. (The second one is Dawn of Midi, so now I’m intrigued.)
Brandt Brauer Frick – Echo
Kölsch - Fabric Presents Kölsch
Wonderful leftfield music. Created as an inspiration from flights, I love how this concept is there from the flow of the music through the titles of the tracks to the artwork of the cover. It’s a beautifully coherent piece of art.
Strangely I have an association between this and Kalkbrenner’s Berlin Calling soundtrack album, but that’s probably some kind of mood undertone that links these for me. Maybe becuase it’s summer now and both have this “late night walk with a warm breeze of air” feel to it.
Red Axes – Sound Test
The tune in Shabak Shalom gets me hooked like when I couldn’t listen to anything but Forget the Timing on repeat. Fantastic tech house.
Vaal – Nosferatu
I have the same feeling like when I listened to the latest record by FJAAK: these guys are rummaging in the bottom of their pockets and pull out stuff from the past, dust them off, and create something that I find fascinating. Vaal has these breakbeats that are like echoing the Matrix all over it, so much ’90s, blast from the past, but she still builds something atop that feels current. I love it.
Adriatique – Nude
It’s like IDM techno. Deep, melodic, atmospheric.
Recondite – Silk
After I recently rediscovered techno as club music last fall, I have a much more sensitive radar for music to move the body by. And Recondite is my latest love in this segment, walking along the lines of techno and house. It appeared a few times in some playlist for me but I always just noted that this is great. Then a few weeks ago I methodically started listening through his whole catalog. There are not many filler releases there, lot of beautiful dance music. This latest EP is awesome, too. Slowly building large arches of thumping deep house, surrounded with ambient dreamscapes.
Modeselektor – Who Else
Just recently I got to going through all last year’s Modeselektor output and the single from the new record sounded the most promising. So no surprises there that the album is great. Many different flavors from the dancefloor to the chill room, but all the tracks have the unmistakeable touch of Modeselektor. I instantly started looking at the upcoming live dates to catch them some time.
The Black Dog – Post-Truth
Supposedly the uptempo twin brother of Black Daisy Wheel with often melodic but mostly beat focused techno, house and IDM instead of the ambient landscapes. In 2015 these guys totally surprised me with my own reaction of how much I loved their record of the time, and now I feel the same. Lucky that I didn’t create any top lists last year because this one would be missing from there.
FJAAK – Havel
Lot of stuff from the past few decades mashed together and it is a blast. In a way it’s like watching Stranger Things: it draws pretty direct inspiration from certain sources but still creates something for the now that I can interpret as the product of today. This music is many things from leftfield through techno to breakbeat, but it couldn’t have been written in those past eras because we needed to take that journey and get to the now with all these stuff in our heads to have this mash-up today. I am probably over-explaining this for the RA review that I’ve just read which lacks originality. Anyway, I don’t. I think FJAAK is unique in the blend it creates. It sounds like the soundtrack of me growing up. And I would absolutely love to listen to their selection in a party setting.
Modeselektor – Wealth
Just like recently going through everything Booka Shade in 2018, I did now the same with Modeselektor. They were not that productive, but the 4th Modeselektion is still not bad, and my favorite of the year was Wealth. Reminds me of the heavy-hitting flow that took me by surprise when The Dark Side of the Sun appeared.