[Tresor]

Matthew Puffett, best known to adventurous techno fans as Future Beat Alliance, didn’t make it to Tresor this year by playing it safe. While plenty of his contemporaries in techno spent the last fifteen years getting harder, danker, and darker, Puffett’s path has led him into more strangely melodramatic territory. Puffett’s discography, spanning the crème de la crème of continental techno imprints, evokes some long-running sci-fi soap opera detailing the misadventures wealthy gamma ray magnates, intergalactic war heroes, bored space station wives and the robots who love them. It’s a big sound, but a weirdly cute one as well, and a perfect antidote to the sort of post-industrial angst co-opted by so much vaguely futurist dance music.

Puffett, who releases FBA missives consistently if not prolifically, put out his first Tresor release, the Machines Can Help EP, this summer, and it fit into his universe perfectly. His latest for Tresor, the Mourning EP, sort of jumps the shark. The FBA sound, with its quirky melodic twists and B-movie textures, has always sounded pitched to a magical dance floor that I’m not sure exists. (Trekkie meet-up at Timewarp this year, anyone?) The Mourning EP unfortunately drifts a little too close to actual big tents for comfort. Abandoning the cosmic disco overtures of the Machines Can Help EP for the straight beats of strangely distant drum machines, all three of this EP’s productions lack the immediacy and legitimate weirdness that keeps us coming back to FBA. Despite this, Puffett still manages some pretty singular stuff. On “Endless Blue,” a sustained synth spreads out slowly amidst futuristic zaps and wiggly bass. “Discordant” mines pretty similar territory, but more heroically. “Mourning” builds to a moment of synthesized ecstasy before a comedown of tender computerized arpeggios. Yet this all adds up to a large dose of weirdness for weirdness’ sake, and perhaps something of a retread. I don’t want to discourage bold, trend-bucking techno, but with young astro-traveler Space Dimension Controller suddenly nipping at his heels, I can’t let Future Beat Alliance off easy this time. Here’s hoping the saga gets back on track in short order.