Back catalogue: Techno (All)

Review: Kassian never hurries his release rate which means that when the Shall Not Fade and SB Jamz producer does drop new music you need to tune in. This latest comes six months after his self-released and self-thief versions 003 back in January and arrives via the esteemed K7. 'X-303' is twisted and textured techno for late night warehouses with 'Tabla' a more layered up jumble of percussion and loopy drums. 'Prelude' burrows deep on a prying lead and bulky but rubbery drum loops and 'Patterns' rounds out with an edgy vibe, clipped vocals and uneasy synths that keep you locked.

Review: Mineral Cuts is back with more otherworldly tech house offerings, this time in the form of a split 12". KG Beat is up for with a well constructed and prog-tinged track that is always on the move; always giving you the feeling that it is going somewhere big. It's the synth sequences that convey that feeling and mean you remain locked in throughout. Cosmic Soup Sound System then styes sup to twist melons a little more with 'Eddie De Boing De Boing,' another track that gives you a dancefloor rush with waves of warm synth over old school tech house drums that are perfectly clean and punchy.

Review: Dutch label Daro carried a release from Can Oral's Khan alias back in 2021, and now they've tapped up the veteran techno legend for another suite of high-quality minimal techno from a true original. This isn't the kind of tepid, uninspired after party fodder you can find in most places - Oral's experience speaks through his machines and we get treated to a wayward kind of club music that bursts with personality. 'My House' is tough as hell and just as freaky, dealing in tightly clipped stabs which come on like SND making actual party music. 'In Waves' by contrast is a gloopy, bong bath of an ambient techno piece, while 'The Demonic Screen' flips the script once again with fragmented, stop-start beats working according to an unusual internal logic. 'Turkish Camp' completes the picture with a squashed and grubby transmission from the underworld, with more than enough low-end heft to keep a late night crowd locked on.

Review: Vinyl debutants The Kid N Cliff (most likely an alias for a better-known artist or artists) are the latest outfit to join the ranks of "interpretation" and "homage" specialists Dirty Blend. There are two tracks on offer, both of which are pleasingly epic and stretched out. A-side 'Don't Be Alarmed' is raw, spaced out and analogue rich, sounding like a light-tough rework of an early jacking Chicago house cut or obscure proto-techno treat from the early 1980s. 'Heavy Thump (Bangdatshyt)' sounds like an edit (or tribute to) something from a similar period - all jacking, lo-fi machine drums, deep and filtered bass, vinyl crackle, Ron Hardy builds, and more sampled drums. Whatever it references - and early Chicago house is the obvious comparison - it's breathlessly brilliant.

Review: The short-lived moniker of Kingpin Cartel comprised techno titan Mark Broom and lost legend CJ Baker. Their output spanned a 5-year period starting in 2005, on which the release of 'Moogie Nights' laid down their methodology; funky abstinations from Broom's usual style of hard, gritty techno. The 'Ghetto' EP was their second and most famous release. Best known for its lead title track, a triumphant techno-funk piece and a prototype for the bright, swanky mode repopularised by the likes of KiNK in recent decades. Also came 'Fishfunk', a wacky cut dipping its on motifs from French house to g-funk, and 'Bottle', a raspy house number replete with bitcrushed chords and domestic, found-sound samples.

Review: Roland Klinkenberg is back on Late Night Burners with his Sim o1/Trance Textures 2 EP and does a fine job of hooking you in form the first beat. 'Planetoide' is warm, surging tech house with an underlapping bassline to die for. 'Loopy Tune' is a different proposition with a much more bumpy and playful rhythm full of bounce and 'Encountings' closes down with the more teary eyed and trance-tinged euphoria of the whole EP. In between is the raw, stripped back 'Subterranean Express' to make for a fourth different tune in this fine and varied package.

Review: Moroccan production wizard Kosh returns to Casa Voyager for a rather impressive new four-tracker, 'Get It Done', which does exactly that and then some. Straddling as many genres as to remain somewhat unpigeonholeable, we launch into the full-bodied breaksy dubstep opener that is 'Hurry Up' before landing on 4x4 rave turf with 'Break It Until You Make It'; both tracks are liberal with their sample choppage and fidgets. The titular B-sider introduces an infectious chord swing and spit-snare, while the closing 'Despair' lets us in on the darker side of Kosh's inner world, as we careen through the acid-pad-filled veins of the beast.