Back catalogue: Techno (Alles)

Review: Mord has put together a bumper collection of 17 searing techno cuts as part of its Herdersmat compilation but is also seeing up four at a time on individual 12"s. There is no messing with Part 41 which opens with DJ Shufflemaster & Go Hiyama's ear-splitting, brain frazzling 'Salasa Geometric'. Bartig Move opts for a much more minimal and roomy sound on the rolling 'Asistencia' then Tensal picks up the pace once more with the rusty loops and broken beats of 'Esbar'. Aocram's 'Dreams In NYC' is a swamp, depraved closer for late night mischief.

Review: Mord's Body of Divinity EP, featuring Oxygeno, dives headfirst into the raw, industrial techno sound the label is known for. Across six tracks, the release delivers the kind of dark, relentless energy you can easily imagine rattling through a peak-time set in a gritty, dimly lit club. Deep, wobbling basslines and acid-laced elements pulse through the EP, giving it a fierce edge while staying true to that tough, industrial vibe. The second-to-last track introduces a spacey, slightly elevating twist, but never drifts too far from the EP's heavy, mechanical atmosphere. The closer, 'Body of Divinity', shifts gears with a chuggy, more house-inflected groove, making it stand out without breaking the overall intensity. It's one of the strongest cuts on the EP, balancing a bit of swing with that signature Mord grit.

Review: The Rotterdam label Mort's long-running Herdersmat series was first released in digital compilation form; only now has this round table turned its swords towards a sequential vinyl series, not the first of which you hear here. This 12" marks parts 16 in the series, clocking contributions from producers Rumenige, TAKA, Jokasti, Nek, and NX1. The heads-down producoes so named have delivered a creative, blazing irradiation of broken techno heat here, charting a rumbly and grounded, yet no less interoceptively arresting haul; our fave 'Eka' throws our sense of balance of course with quick, hard autopans and roughly ingrained, kick trods; then the silver medalist 'MRD1' bucks the proceedings off to unploughed courses, frightening the listener with garbled, found-footage EVP voices between horror-techno kicks.

Review: Dark, hard techno producer Tensal brings a heathen, cultic mood to the arc of techno orthodoxy with his latest record 'Perpetual Survivor'. With its ominous heraldic symbol on the 12" inner label, and a four-track sonic palette portraying the seedy underbellies of religiosity, this is a record that recalls the Brum-school solemnity of Downwards Records or the post-Catholic heresies of Vatican Shadow. Opener 'Sonic Particle Rain' claps back with a status-quo-shattering barrage of sonic madness by way of 16th-note stutters and squelching lows, while 'Ethos' breaks from the horde with a personal, textural reflection on what it means to follow one's own ethical code. Meanwhile, 'Perpetual Survivor' and 'Nemesis' strip things down to barer bones, amounting to something of a puritan Reformation in sound; the gilded ornamented of their clerical predecessors are contrasted starkly here by the B-side's electric, merciless and sparse sound.