Minimal / Tech House

Review: Deeper shades of a finely sifted pedigree. Irish label Appian Sounds, helmed up by Al Blayney, champion only winnowed techno sounds, not threshed. A welcome international team huddle in, with these six artists from locales as far-flung as Amsterdam and Valencia contributing the likes of 'Tsuneo' and 'Persist'. The tunes verge melodic as they move through and beyond jankiness, distending die-cut acids and subtly synthetic humanisations, especially in the percussion department. 'Fuego' is the zen roshi's choice, its gaffered, glass-smithed pads topping off a naturalistic percussive surging forward, one best experienced with your eyes closed.

Review: Byron The Aquarius is a bastion of quality modern house music and the seance volume f this series on Phonogramme can't come soon enough. It finds the keys master and former hip-hop producer doing what he does best - laying down raw, dusty beats with captivating melodies. 'Co$mic Felacio (Freaking92)' stars with low-slung menace, 'Gift Of Gab' is a bright house stomper with smudged and smeared chords and 'Willie Wonkaaa' has a darker, more unsettling edge and squealing synth lead. 'Akirashi' is a nice chilled-out beatdown to close.

Review: This new collection offers up a quartet of tracks that are all tailored for slightly different moments on the dance floor. On side A, Dani Casarano kicks off with deep, hypnotic grooves that make for an immersive atmosphere before transitioning to punchy, bass-driven energy with other cuts. Side B introduces a new alter ego from Felian and Bruno Schmidt and the pair explore a robotic, looping groove with incidental breaks and nostalgic synths in the euphoric third track. Closing the release in style, Omar Akrhif & Lucretio present a minimalist masterpiece that is aimed at heady after-hours sessions.

Review: Germany's Marvin Dash is one of those house producers who is on the radars of those who know, but should have a much wider profile given his skills. He mixes up Detroit vibes and minimal grooves and has done for more than 30 years. Back in the early days he worked with the notorious Lowtec and was at the heart of the DIY scene in East Germany. Now some of his best work from that time gets reissued on this fine double album which is a quality blend of emotive house groves, loose-limbed tech workouts and immersive downtempo soundscapes.

Review: Inspired by "cosmic vibes and alien sounds", Cut Line Records is a freshly minted imprint founded by New York-based producers Majak and Diego Knows. Wisely, they've decided to set their stall out via a multi-artist EP that offers more than a few hints about what we can expect to hear in the months and years ahead. Naturally, they contribute, rounding off the EP via the collaborative 'Electrik Funk', a smooth, spacey and sub-heavy slab of tech-house funk marked out by cut-up vocal snippets, intergalactic-sounding motifs and rubbery beats. There's plenty to set the pulse racing across the rest of the EP though, from the acid-flecked tech-house funkiness of Pedro Goya's 'Celeste', to the star-fall haziness of Digital Pimps electro roller 'Warning Bells', via the electro-goes-breakbeat shuffle of 'Alien Vision' by Frankula and St Xose.

Review: Berlin's Exit Strategy began their 12"s game releasing EPs in browned sleeves, shortly before branching out into digital-vinyl combo releases with original artwork in the 2020s. Now with over ten years of experience under their belts, they welcome five new artists for a playful bricolage in deep and minimal techno, privileging elite, razor-sharp additive sound design and future-soulful vocal tasters. Ivory's opener 'Rain' epitomises this, while Jimi Jules squelchifies the same formula, and Aera's 'Future Holdings' rolls out the same logic to its ultimate conclusion, veering towards complex, 3D-graphic melodic techno composed entirely of climbing saws.

Review: Two standout tracks from Priori's This But More get a stripped, emotional rework from Loidis, which is of course the introspective alias of Brian Leeds aka Huerco S. and Pendant who is known for his minimal, textured approach. Here, Loidis stretches the originals into hypnotic, slow-burning explorations. The rhythms remain intact but feel deeper, warmer, like echoes from a distant rave. It's dancefloor music in slow motion: eyes closed, head lost in the groove. These extended versions don't just remix, they reimagine while blurring lines between ambient and club, motion and stillness. It's a compelling fusion of restraint and rhythm, perfect for late nights and deep-listening sessions alike.

Review: Paris-based Loris is a cult minimalist who heads up his own aeTERNUM MUSIC and plays plenty of the scene's most tasteful events. This new extended project finds him serving up an array of solo cuts and collabs with the likes of Praymond & Abe and countryman DJ W!ld. The latter, 'Dirty Busines', is a standout with its shimmering rhythm looping beneath percussion that sounds like it was recorded next door. 'Standardized Human Era' is a clean and synthetic, sparse and abstract sound for 5 am, 'Dekstra Orelo' is a slow motion dub percolator with plenty of mad effects and trippy treated vocals. All in all, this is like the soundtrack to a perfect afterparty.

Review: We didn't see this coming but we're very much delighted it has: the peerless dub techno don Steve O'Sullivan with a full length of past triumphs and unreleased gems on Nina Kraviz's always adventurous Trip label is always going to be worth hearing. The Brit stretches his legs and pulls out all the stops here to cover plenty of ground while reaming true to his signature sound design excellence: bouncy, minimal but strobe-lit cuts like 'Kesk', twisted 90s techno sounds like 'Grun', barely-there IDM-adjacent sounds like 'Groente' and ice cold dub cuts like 'Botala'. A real masterclass.

Review: Repeat Records are currently embarking on a multi-part series of longtime DJ Eddie Richards' earliest tracks, and this second journey - that's right - follows up the first waxen time capsule to appear so far. Richards' behind-the-booth adventurousness is often credited as one of the instrumental factors in the spread of house music in the UK, and doesn't 'Time Travel' show it. Lesser known as a producer but still much respected in said niche, several choice slab-grooves from Richards' early noughts numbers are selected here: track two from 2002's 'The Dark' EP, 'Underskopje' from that same year's Kubrickian tech house hurler 'Open The Pod Door' EP, and a legitly deep cut from the AA2 side of Richards' Othersound debut 'Dope'. One for early tech house heads, when the genre was still innocent and real experts reigned supreme.

Review: Schuttle's latest invites you into a simulated realm of post-biological optimism. The voyage begins with 'Splan,' where a divine arp propels you through fractal landscapes and interlocking melodic polygons which splurge joyful machine funk. In 'Melonweed Musick,' there is a descent into swampy marshlands powered by a breakbeat groove while an angel cleanses with serene chords. 'Kitchen Sync' takes things to 120bpm where acid and glimmering keys create a fusion of the known and the otherworldly. Finally, in 'Inspo 2000' a playful percussive edge guides you to a soft landing and ends what is a brilliantly evocative EP.

Review: Etymology is the study of the history and formation of words in language. Rarely do we find an artist, not least a somatically inclined dance music artist, concerned with such disciplines; usually that strand of things is left to us critics. Yet despite the titular allusion to said verbal science, further references to words on this release by Stekke are scant. In fact, 'Etymology' the track is as wordless as a mute, preferring a pure 120-ish BPM movement of rumbly and understated proportions, emphasising process over object. Flicky hats and unassuming chord hits predominate; we infer that it's the following remixes from Daniel Paul, Gari Romalis, Satoshi Tomiie and Losoul that are the real sonic cognates of interest here, spanning fidgeting minimal trance etymons and derivative dub lexemes. We return to a radical root on 'Downbeat', which features Audio Werner on a muted workout for hand drum and synth swell.

Review: Stefano Chesti aka Stephno has been hella busy this year as this is already his fifth release of 2025. His sound is rooted in techno but with hints of jacked up early Chicago and that's clear again here. 'The Intermittent' is a raw roller with vamping chord stabs to keep you locked. 'Dritto E Tondo' has some brilliantly succulent and pining kick drums powering it along with raw-as-you-like hits and trippy synths and 'Romantic Dub' is just that - warm, zoned out, cavernous dub for late night love-ins. 'Sieben Null Sieben' brings analogue drum sounds and Windy City realness to the fore to close.

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: Wolfgang Voigt's Studio 1 and Freiland are landmark examples of 1990s minimalist concept techno. Studio 1 defined a stripped-down, hypnotic approach, while Freiland explored a more experimental, textured sound. This release features two discs with each of those differing approaches served up, but the second compiles the best of Freiland into a continuous set. Both showcase Voigt's pioneering vision and knack for marrying great precision with an absorbing atmosphere in a way that remains influential today. Essential listening for techno-purists and fans of the avant-garde.

Review: wAFF is a part of the big room techno future at this stage. The UK artist has been rolling out effective tracks to lock in large crowds for many years on a range of labels. It is Nature where he finds himself here and once again he sticks to his usual formula - well designed drums that are chunky but warm, with burrowing synths up top and some effects and vocals to bring them alive. 'Leaving You' starts things at a slick pace, 'Underbite' is a little more minimal and loopy and 'Fat Couch' brings a classic r&b sample to the tech beats for even more crowd-pleasing effect.