THE ADVENT Schallplatten & CDs

Review: This is a special sampler 12" taken from the Various Artists compilation Defend Your Planet that Avoidant Records put out. It features a heavyweight crew of electro mainstays, first of which are The Advent & Zein Ferreira. Their 'Defend Your Plane' is a turbo powered cosmic assault with skewed synths and high speed drums. Assembler Code's 'Line Of Sight' doesn't let up, powering on through sheet metal snares and juddering drum programming and then man like Carl Finlow layers in prickly melodies, dark sci-fi energy and booming bass. Analogue master Versalife shits things down with the shadowy 'SH09.'

Review: Those with a deep knowledge of electro and techno will be salivating at the prospect of More Than A Machine: Part 1, an EP that boasts cuts from such legends of the scene as Sterac Electronics, The Advent and Christian Smith. All deliver the goods, of course, as does rising star Client 03, whose EP-opening 'Regression Container' brilliantly flips between shimmering, deep space ambient and warming, tactile electro dreaminess. Those looking for more rugged and robust club fare should check Sterac Electronics 'Reinstated', with its' out-there lead lines and machine-gun bass, and the sleazy, up-tempo futurism of the Adveny and Zein Ferreira's 'Seven'. Christian Smith's deep, Kraftwerk-influenced 'Pressure Drop' rounds off a predictably strong EP.