Back catalogue:

Review: This four-track compilation draws a tight line between warehouse muscle and emotional lift, delivering techno that's as moving as it is functional. Each cut brings a distinct perspective, yet they all share a sense of cinematic build and focused production. Gregor Tresher starts with 'Bonegrinder', a slow-burn builder that creeps forward before erupting into a peak-time workout. The groove is tight, the progression deliberate and when it hits full stride, it lands with impact. 'Cascade Rips', a collaboration between Works Of Intent and Voltaire, brings a different mood entirely. Its rolling bassline sits beneath a futuristic synth lead that feels both suspenseful and strangely touching. There's emotion under the surface and it simmers just right. On the Side-B, Marco Bailey drops 'Arcane', built around raw drum machine sequences and electro pulses. It grooves hard with a throwback vibe, nodding to early rave with metallic melodies and vocodered snippets that recall Kraftwerk without mimicking. The closer, 'Perditae' by Tom Hades and Soren Aalberg, floats into a more euphoric space. Its rising melody and ghostly vocals feel like they're beamed down from the heavens. A smartly curated collection of peak and soul.

Review: Shed's Towards East was originally made for Berlin's Dussmann store back in 2022. It's a very personal project that now gets reissued by The Final Experiment and it sounds superb. The Polish producer weaves in plenty of foggy and lo-fi ambient pads into these tracks, whether they are beatless vignettes or more low-end driven soundscapes such as 'Absolute.' On 'In Between (Fur Geli), yearning strings and a lonely motif amongst walls of melancholic synth done and 'September 5th' is another hazy memory with nostalgic overtones and loads of frayed edges and buried melodic wisps. It's techno, but not as we know it.

Review: As pioneers of underground techno and co-founders of Soma Records, the Scottish duo continue to redefine the soundscape with Dark Channel, their eighth full-length album. In a world fractured by division, Slam offer a raw, uncompromising tribute to the dancefloor as a space of unity and release. Opening with the tribal pulse of 'Use It, Lose It', the album wastes no time setting a fierce, driving tone. The title track, 'Dark Channel', leans into dissonance and texture, hinting at the relentless energy that permeates the record. Tracks like 'Parametric Factor' and 'Glide' are synth-fueled voyages, the latter embracing a classic Slam percussive intensity. 'Morganatic' plunges into shadowy territory, while 'Infinit Spaces' weaves in trippy FX and lively synth hooks. 'Kuture Version provides a moment of introspection before the pounding rhythms return. 'Ghost Dancer' rides on deep sub tones and eerie modulations, creating a dense, brooding atmosphere. As the album approaches its finale, 'Beat On The Drum' delivers a full-force rhythmic assault and 'Irregular Object' closes with a hypnotic, contorted energy. Dark Channel is both a reflection of turbulent times and a powerful celebration of techno's enduring spirit, proving Slam's contribution is as vital as ever.

Review: With A Real Piece Of Work, Stillhead helps Brightest Dark Place reach into the "hazy, blurred overlap between techno and ambient", throwing a suspension chord between two bluffs over a vast sonic chasm, and letting terse rhythms monkey-swing across it, letting reverb bellow from below. This is an equally dynamic but intense listening experience, proving that vast, chasmic sound design need not chafe against dynamic buoyancy: the two can coexist. Keeping to about 170BPM, the Edinburgh DJ marks his sixth release here, and it is an impressive logical extension from 2022's comparable mission statement Restraint And Reverb: 'The Red Ball' suspends a sampled 'Funky Drummer' over an atoll of sub compulsions, while 'A Light Thump On The Head' stretches a classic future garage rhythm over a telegraphic void, with dispersive, long-decaying results.

Review: Remarkably accomplished techno minimalisms from Hamburg producer Stimming, who's been dazzling his contemporaries with his highly touching works since the early 2000s. The artist's latest full-length LP follows the precedent single 'Keys Don't Match', with its stammering sound design and abeyant, textural purities, which echo the slow-building sublimities of DJ Koze, Apparat or the Keinemusik crew. With the condensate vocals of Dominique Fricot heard throughout, this one-of-a-kind record reminds us not to take or use the hackneyed phrase "unique production style" too lightly. His really is. As it was with 'Keys Don't Match', which clinched a 15-year first relationship through the metaphor of mismatched keys, the entire record, from 'The Origin' to 'Feeding Seagulls', has us stimming with intrigue.

Review: Since at least 2024, by our estimation, shells have been enjoying something of an "it moment" in electronic music. Don't ask us why. Perhaps the icky palps of nautiluses, or the helical segmentation of various fossils, would seem to predict the naturalisation of mechanical reproductions expressed in techno. Birmingham keystone Surgeon (Anthony Child) swoops in on the fervour, repurposing larked sonic opercula into filter-fed 4x4 Borg-anisms. But despite the implied theme, Child uses limited equipment - "For me, it's an interesting experience returning to old techniques again after 30 years" - and refashions a classic live-show-style approach here. All eight tracks were done in a single take, and only 'Dying' upends beats, delivering a moribund, mantric sound piece.

Review: UK-based producer Yuri Suzuki goes hard as nails on his latest effort, landing on Detroit Underground with an unfettered collection of pounding techno cuts. Having previously released on labels including Sketches, Accidental, and Super Rhythm Trax, including notable collaborations with Ed DMX, this long-player is among his most unflinching. From the aptly titled 'Violent Acid Stuff' to the no-less descriptive 'Raver', the tempo maintains a furious pace throughout, with pounding drums, jarring synths, and, of course, searing 303 lines very much the order of the day. Simply put, if you're a fan of acid techno, you'd be strongly advised to buy this one on sight.