[Aquaplano]

On the first Aquaplano release without label co-owner Donato Dozzy as a collaborator, the Italian producer Manuel Fogliata — known best as Nuel — delivers five tracks that ably complement the pair’s creations, evoking both the grainy, industrial emanations of the Mathematics label and the sputtering minimal techno of Jeff Mills and Mike Parker. In this respect, Aquaplano ltd 01 clearly has no presumptions about reinventing techno — Fogliata knows his niche and seems quite comfortable exploring its nuances. The tracks generally sound like rough edits from an extended jam, which may be off-putting for those looking for ready made club material. Heard solely as an artistic statement, however, the confident use of a cohesive palette takes the record a long way.

A1 is a techno stormer heard from the end of a long tunnel, dubbed-out and echoing but confined to a very narrow framework. The kicks are clipped and smudgy, and a looping air-raid synth line fades in and out of coherence. Everything sounds like it’s fighting to be heard, and the frequently in-the-red percussion often chokes out the other sounds, resulting in some intense ominousness. A2 is the first of two beatless tracks, featuring a cloudy, lethargic refrain undercut by a bassy drone and various mechanical whirs and squeaks. B1, quite similar to A1 in its pared-down instrumentation, is easily the release’s cleanest track. A wavy drum pattern is entwined with looping beeps and stabs of ambience, and subject to heavy amounts of delay, though the structure is far less cramped than that of A1.

B2 represents a happy medium between the previous tracks, maintaining a similarly shimmying rhythmic pattern, propulsive but with enough of a distorted crunch to keep things interesting. Fogliata incorporates an indistinct sample of a woman exhaling, as well as a sublime atmospheric passage that swells along with the track. Finally, B3 pairs slow, foreboding acidic squelches with more gorgeous, delicately creeping ambience. Simply put, the meticulous atmospherics make the record; for your reviewer, it’s imbued with an enveloping feeling of travel sickness, the heartache of transience and the strange nostalgia warp of airports. Of course, its impressionism leaves it open to interpretation; it’s not a dictatorial record, and its tracks are not merely tools. A postcard from the fringe, Aquaplano ltd 01 is probably not destined for DJ-staple status, but it does stand as an imaginative bending of what a techno 12″ can be.