Tresor Germany Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Cybotron are best known as the early purveyors of electro as we know it, responsible for the genre's more mechanised incarnations from as early as the mid-1980s. Now, though, they "re-emerge in our contemporary cybercultural age when artifactual futures begin a transition into a new era of "Meta'", with two new tracks on Tresor, 'Maintain' and 'The Golden Ratio'. While this sentence might take some decoding, we're fain to speculate that it has something to do with the current mass-mediated zeitgeist centring on virtual reality and its implications for metaphysics, both of which right up Cybotron's street as concepts go. Something about the perturbed spirit of 2023 has awoken Juan Atkins and Laurens von Oswald from their decades-long slumber to produce this vocoded, deep-waving, technocult opus. We must figure out what!

Review: For the legendary label Tresor to put out a breakbeat record is something very rare. The ardent techno label for over 30 years is clearly telling us without saying, how good this music is. Tresor is always in touch with rave music though and it's not fully surprising that Tresor would support any music that is so reminiscent of the old skool days like Digital Entropy is. Datashader rises from the depths to give us their wicked debut. The EP is an audio onslaught that combines blistering breakbeat gems like 'Velocity 04.22' with eerie sci-fi pieces like 'Sync Out Off'. The AFX like 'Fong' and 'Sub Osc" are early favorites from those who have heard samples of this haunting record. It is rare to see the power of rave, breakbeat and IDM presented this well on one record.

Review: Considered by some to be one of the greatest IDM albums of all time (though we'd argue that it's really an electro set), Drexciya's 2002 set 'Harnessed The Storm' has been given the 20th anniversary reissue treatment. Pressed to striking silver vinyl and housed in freshly redesigned packaging, it's certainly an alluring album. It was part of a series of conceptually linked sets the pair recorded in 12 months (most of the others were subsequently released under other aliases after the surprise death of member James Stinson), and it has a typically atmospheric, other-worldly sound - underwater sci-fi electro that twisted standard Motor City tropes into a variety of futuristic directions. Highlights include the fizzing 'Digital Tsunami', the beautiful and widescreen 'Under Sea Disturbances' (a freakishly sub-heavy affair) and the clandestine shimmer of 'Lake Haze'.

Review: As part of Drexciya's latest reissue campaign with Tresor, their most defining album 'Neptune's Lair' here gets a rerelease with brand new cover art from Detroit contemporary artist Matthew Angelo Harrison, not to mention a fresh remaster. Perfectly representing the DIY flair of their original deep-sea electro sound - with rough analogue electronics submerged in lo-fi, as though they're being drowned a Drexciyan merman - we're more than happy to have 'Andreaen Sand Dunes', 'Universal Evement' and 'Surface Terrestrial Colonization' grace our ears again.

Review: The definition of a seminal work, Drexciya's Harnessed The Storm gets a re-release from the one and only Tresor. Part of their special editions series offering re-releases of the illustrious Detroit duo's entire catalogue, this album is jam-packed full of Drexciya favourites from 'Digital Tsunami' to 'Under Sea Disturbances'. Individually and as a catalogue, these releases represent key moments within Tresor's long and influential history. And the mythic soundworld of Drexciya is undoubtedly at the height of their iconic output, inspiring generations of artists in its wake.

Review: LNS and DJ Sotofett explore a new direction on their latest EP, 'The Reformer,' released on Tresor Records. Moving away from their debut album, the duo fuses digital artifacts, scanner sounds, and vocoder voices with melodic colors that radiate across cold electro landscapes. The opening track, 'Reform,' takes a deep dive into the electro sound, while 'Plexistorm' blends synthesised strings with arpeggiated acidic bleeps. 'Electric Terraforming' uncovers charged energy sources for life on another planet, and '909 The Controller' features washes of dub over a skipping beat, with a slow, rippling melody and percolating synths. The vinyl version includes exclusive locked grooves by DJ Sotofett.

Review: Tresor's extended focus on reissuing old Drexciya and Drexciya-related projects continues here with this version of Shifted Phases' 'The Cosmic Memoirs Of The Late Great Rupert J Rosinthrope'. A short-lived alias of Drexciya's beloved James Stinson, Shifted Phases' only LP here is one of few affiliated projects that has remained out of print ever since its rather low-key release in 2002. Wildly popular despite it, the music heard on the album is undeniable early electro, locking in a characteristically frank, almost meek, yet astro-nautical electro sound. Scratchy crud and sonar feedback beeps extend to the deepest sonic reaches on this one; you better salvage it from the abyssal waters of history (by copping it), and quick.

Review: 'The Cosmic Memoirs Of The Late Great Rupert J Rosinthrope' is an obscure rarity by a short-lived alias of Drexciya member James Stinson, Shifted Phases, which is now getting the full, refocused reissue treatment by German clubbing giant Tresor. Having remained out of print since its initially tiny release for over two decades, this bubbly yet grim electro album reflects an epistolary concept expressed musically rather than in written form. Rupert J. Rosinthrope is a mysterious character, but these cosmic memoirs hopefully shed at least some light on "his" misunderstood memory.

Review: Given the reissue wave of Drexciya-related material has been trucking for more than 10 years now, it's quite remarkable this masterpiece from the late James Stinson has waited so long to be reissued. Originally carried on Tresor in 2002 as one of the final releases he put out in his lifetime, the one-off Shifted Phases project feels loaded with context not least with the album framed as 'Cosmic Memoirs'. This is unmistakably Stinson's work, veering from rubbery machine funk freakery to the melancholic, back room electro mood of The Other People Place, all presented with due care across three discs by the Tresor faithful and including two outstanding tracks which were previously only available on the CD edition.

Review: Electro lovers will be foaming at the mouth over this one - it is a super luxe reissue of some seminal UK electro from the late 90s. It channels plenty of Drexcyia vibes with its cinematic sound and sci-fi overtones and sounds as good now as it ever has. All of the tunes on it have been remastered from DAT tapes and included along the way is 'Original Flow' which wasn't on the album before and has never been released. It was only recently unearthed having been written in 2000.

Review: Of all the many Drexciya-related projects, Transllusion is surely one of the finest. Coming in the twilight years of James Stinson's life, there's a bittersweet quality to Opening Of The Cerebral Gate but it doesn't hold the force of the music back. From 'Transmission Of Life's searing arps to the nasty machine funk of 'Negative Flash', this is Stinson running at full clip, speaking that innate Drexciyan language through the machines in a manner which has been oft imitated but never even remotely matched. Reissued by Tresor in 2014 with a bonus 12", now it's presented with a fresh sleeve design which evokes the cyberpunk mood of the music in fine style.

Review: Back in 2001, short lived Tresor Berlin sublabel Supremat released Mind Over Positive & Negative Dimensional Matter by Drexciya co-founder James Stinson under his Transllusion moniker. This much needed reissue features all three original tracks. There's the murky electro funk of 'Disrupted Neural Gateway', the minimalist beat dystopia of 'Do You Want To Get Down?' and more ghosts in the machine conjured up on B-side offering 'Power Of The 3rd Brain'. 2022 marked the 20th anniversary of Stinson's untimely passing.

Review: Tresor home in on the happy musical 'accidents' of acclaimed techno duo Transparent Sound for this eponymous new triple retrospective album. Containing such neat audio-tools like the drill bit 'Slang City' and the spanner 'Windows To Your Sole', the originals heard here nail that sense of original, minimal, space-invadery, and melodic electro charm that many artists try to emulate, but few can properly muster up. Perhaps it can only really come from having made that kind of music at the time of its origination, which Transparent Sound luckily did.