Minimal techno: Shapeman in good shape

I’m one of those grumpy old men that finds this new subgenre of techno, “melodic techno”, to be contradictory and quite frankly ridiculous. Techno is supposed to be cold, dark, mechanical and above all, percussion focused. It’s supposed to be the opposite of melodic. That’s the staple of the genre, damnit!

So when I am submitted a techno track and it holds something that resembles a melody in it, the distance to the “decline” button is very short for me.

Here’s rather minimal techno track that made my mouse hover the mentioned button almost throughout the entire duration. But there was something there. You know, that magical “something“, that “it-factor” that is hard to define but when it’s there you notice it. So I had to play it again. And again.

And for each time it grew on me. So here we are:

Shapeman – Exit

It’s a dreamy track, this. It floats, as opposed to stomps. Melodic, kind, mild-hearted.

What I’m trying to say is that judging by the properties of the track it’s not really my kind of techno. Still, the track intrigues me. And that is a particular kind of quality that should not be ignored. To convince the church is not hard – to reach the doubters are really what separates the strong tracks from the rest.

Shapeman is a Canadian with an output that spans over both paintings and music. And this track as well as the cover art proves he’s well suited for both.

So there you go. A techno track that will not really fit into my Spotify techno list at all. But it’s still something I wanted to show you, so here goes! Maybe you got a well suited playlist for it? It deserves to be played!

… And sorry for that horrible pun in the headline. It was bad. Really bad.


This track is added to our “Beatradar Selections“, the Spotify playlist that holds all our selected tracks. So that’s one list with a wide span – the tracks only have one thing in common: They are great pieces of electronica.

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