NEREID Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Nereid strip away the noise and focus on the music - an anonymous project by design on a self-manned label. This is faceless techno through and through, from the monochromatic artwork to the steely machinations of the music. It's far from a dry ride though - "Charon" leads the EP in confidently atop a snaking acid line that pulses between spacious percussion and some artfully placed atmospherics. "Sonic Boundary" is an exercise in spatial design, letting the reverbs bloom into an edgeless void for true transcendence, while "Alluvial Plains" boils the ingredients down to a minimal but motivated reduction. "Terminus" finishes the EP off on a nervous tryst with crooked rhythms and strafing acid lines swirling into an amorphous whole.

Review: Nereid appears out of the techno mists on the newly minted Warped Core label shrouded in mystery, with subtle monochrome head twisters to match. "Umea" leads the charge on the A side with an ethereal trip into dubby soundscapes filled out with plentiful reverb and pattering rhythms to snake straight into your cerebellum. "Operator" has an instructive bass throb carrying it along, although it imparts a similar steely aesthetic to the opening track. "Neptune" is no slouch either, using nagging mid-range percussion and eerie bleeps to spell out stern, functional techno of the deepest kind.

Review: ASC continues to explore the techno dimensions of his sound in more detail with the Nereid alias. "Splay" leans in heavy on cyclical rhythms and billowing clouds of dubby atmospherics to create a profoundly immersive experience. "Plask" has a more pronounced set of ingredients that subtly nod to vintage industrial and electro while adhering to the modernist techno focus of the project. On the flip, Svreca is up first with a version of "Vapid" that locks into a tight and nervy broken beat pattern and teases out slow and sustained energy shifts accented with dub processes. The original track is a more spaced out affair with a slow half-time beat and ample space for an eerie wash of sounds to unfurl in dynamic, hypnotic patterns. This is advanced techno with an exploratory instinct and a seductively steely feel.