Feed-Forward is a defining statement about modern-day techno, assimilating existing tropes and narratives from all contributors’ recent and not so recent back catalogs to forge a new identity.
Author Archive: Richard Brophy
Traversable Wormhole, The Remixes Pt. 03
January 12, 2011 – 1:01 AM
The Remixes Pt. 03 offers further proof Traversable Wormhole’s releases have done more than most anonymous projects to forge a new path through the creative stagnation that bedevils electronic music.
STL, Mistakes Are Made For Everyone
January 7, 2011 – 11:01 AM
A decade after Matthew Herbert released his Let’s All Make Mistakes mix for Tresor comes a worthy addendum to the art of doing things incorrectly from Stephan Laubner.
Mike Dehnert, Spreepool
January 5, 2011 – 11:01 AM
Still very much focused on the Basic Channel/Tresor legacy, Mike Dehnert manages to tease and tweak new interpretations out of that general formula on Spreepool.
Corrugated Tunnel, Threadbare
November 11, 2010 – 10:01 AM
A taster for Corrugated Tunnel’s new album on Process Recordings, “Threadbare” sees him move away from his ambient stylings and head down a richer, more traditionally musical route.
LWE Podcast 64: Matt O’Brien
November 8, 2010 – 12:01 AM
At a time when the number of weekly releases is staggeringly high, Matt O’Brien’s erratic release schedule, hardware-based production approach and gritty techno sound are refreshingly old school. In addition to our chat with the producer he’s generously mixed together our 64th exclusive podcast, more than an hour of expertly mixed house and techno to start your week.
DJ Yoav B, Love Dubs
July 26, 2010 – 10:01 PM
DJ Yoav B plots a path on Love Dubs that, while not as precise or flawless as some of his contemporaries in terms of sound design, makes for compelling listening and takes house/techno out of its sterile comfort zone.
Claro Intelecto, New Life
June 24, 2010 – 10:01 AM
Out of his comfort zone but totally unfazed by his surroundingsNew Life marks a new beginning for Claro Intelecto.
Fred P., On This Vibe
June 7, 2010 – 10:01 PM
While Fred is one lynchpins of the resurgent New York house sound, On This Vibe — fittingly on Esperanza, a Spanish label — goes back in time to classics like Sueno Latino’s eponymous hit or the “ambient house” of 808 State for inspiration.
Matt O’Brien, Remixes From The Periphery
May 19, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Matt O’Brien’s Remixes From the Periphery brings together some of the past and present leading lights of techno and house, which in many ways neatly sum up O’Brien’s approach to music-making.
Redshape, Red Pack
May 4, 2010 – 10:01 AM
To these ears at least, Redshape’s debut album was one of the best techno long players of ’09, so the appearance of Red Pack so soon afterwords is a pleasant surprise. While not intended as a follow-up to The Dance Paradox, this double pack performs an equally important function, neatly encapsulating the disparate dance floor styles that now fall under the masked one’s widening palette.
Morphosis, Musafir
April 19, 2010 – 10:01 PM
Rabih Beaini, better known as Morphosis, is the head of the impossibly but irresistibly erratic Morphine label and was responsible for one of my favorite releases of recent years, the moody, reverberations of Dark Myths of Phoenicia Part 2. Given that he also records more freeform music as Ra.H and began his public engagement with electronic music with his own radio show 20 years ago in his native Lebanon, it is no surprise that Beaini’s latest missive doesn’t follow a formula.
Jason Fine, Future Thought Remixed
April 2, 2010 – 10:01 AM
When I saw that Ben Klock had been commissioned to remix Jason Fine, my gut reaction was to flinch in discomfort. After all, the Berghain resident’s music isn’t really known for its sense of romance or emotion, and here he was reworking a track from of the most seductively introspective electronic music albums of recent years.
Matt O’Brien/Peter Van Hoesen & Donato Dozzy, Into the Red/Talis
March 16, 2010 – 10:01 PM
The Belgian label Curle Recordings continues its impressive release schedule with a pan-European heavyweight techno line-up. Representing the UK is the refreshingly unorthodox Matt O’Brien. Favouring a quality over quantity approach that has not yet projected him into the limelight, O’Brien’s selectiveness is nonetheless admirable. Last year, he delivered two of 2009’s best remixes — the eerie take on The Subliminal Kid on his Offkey Industries imprint, and the insane bell chiming cacophony-led reshape of Roberto Bosco on Mowar — along with the excellent From the Periphery EP. While “Into the Red” marks a fresh departure for O’Brien, it sees him maintain the same high standards.
Rennie Foster, More Songs for Homeless Housers
March 2, 2010 – 11:01 PM
Here’s a salutary tale for anyone starting up a label and seeking to gain some coverage through the blanket mail-out approach: under no circumstances call your label something that could be mistaken for spam email. This fate almost befell this release by Rennie Foster on the unwieldy sounding Greta Cottage Workshop label. My email program, struggling to decide whether it was yet another ad for penis enlargement or nicotine patches — I really hope that there’s not a subliminal message in there for me — decided to consign it to my spam folder and I only noticed the release during a ritual clean out. Thankfully it wasn’t lost in the ether because More Songs for Homeless Housers shines a fresh light on the talents of Canadian producer Rennie Foster.
BBH: Circuit Breaker, The End (1991-1996)
February 17, 2010 – 11:01 AM
He may be a media-savvy new technology evangelist these days, but back in the mid 90’s Richie Hawtin was the kind of sketchily dark character you would think twice about leaving your kids with. The Canadian producer was known during that period for the gloriously haunting ambient techno of FUSE — which occasionally and unforgettably on “Substance Abuse” veered into the kind of deranged acid that this installment of BBH focuses on — and the complex poly-rhythms and LSD-referencing menace of his Plastikman project. Yet despite the rumors of acid tabs embossed onto copies of his debut Plastikman album, Sheet One, there was a far more belligerent side to his character: Circuit Breaker. This double pack, released in 1996, charts the laying to rest of the Probe Records sub-label, an outlet that had allowed Hawtin to explore this grungier, edgier identity.
Mike Dehnert, MD2
February 2, 2010 – 11:01 PM
Limited to 150 copies and containing scant information, Mike Dehnert’s latest release (and the first record on MD2) could hardly be seen as an attempt to build on his recent high-profile work for Clone. Like the unassuming presentation, the Berlin producer also delivers music that, coming after a succession of grandiose re-approximations of chord-heavy classic techno, is more understated and less, well, epic.
MLZ, One Cycle
December 2, 2009 – 10:01 AM
2009 must have flown by in a blur for Miles Whittaker. When he wasn’t invoking the spirits of local witches and making painstakingly pieced together but chilling soundtracks with Sean Canty as Demdike Stare — Symbiosis was a slow burning album highlight of the past 12 months — he was attempting to and largely succeeding in reuniting techno with the analogue grit it so patently lacks together with Gary Howell under his other witchcraft-inspired project, Pendle Coven (the evocative, sometimes menacing swagger of the duo’s Self-Assessment album should also feature prominently in any discerning “best of” list next month). In between all this group activity, Miles found the time to fly solo as MLZ to deliver a storming, spiraling acid take on Peter Van Hoesen’s “Attribute One,” and now “One Cycle.”
Redshape, Paradox Dubs
November 24, 2009 – 11:01 AM
Mysterious German producer Redshape is one of the most impressive examples of a general shift in techno back to classical sounds and styles, and “Paradox Dubs,” released in tandem with his stellar Dance Paradox debut album, will reinforce his reputation as a torchbearer for traditional techno. Even the presentation typifies a purism — and I thought I’d never get to say this — that is welcome against the backdrop of a seemingly infinite slew of paper thinly produced techno. “Paradox Dubs” is available on a limited edition 10″, dished out on a first come, first served basis to customers who buy the vinyl version of the album. Until the next major Redshape project, “Paradox Dubs” also brings a neat, though possibly unwitting sense of closure to his output to date.