Ok! Let’s get started after the Easter holidays, and what better way to kick-start it than with techno? Here’s two great tracks you need to hear.

Directional Influence (USA) – Terminal

Too many techno acts today are just sequencing a hard hitting kick, a distorted multi-layered bass and some hysterically compressed hats, slaps on a massive lead that is looped and throw a shitload of filters at that and call it the day.

That’s not really what techno started out to be. No, techno was maybe THE genre where experimentation took place and new textures were explored.

So you can imagine the warm fuzzy feeling that arose in this old techno body when I came across this track. While it’s perhaps not the most experimental vibe, it’s definitely unique and wonderfully produced. An arrangement with several moving parts, all pulling in the same direction.

This track here? It is poetry.

Redge (UK) – We Keep Order

That’s not to say I can’t appreciate releases from the more traditional highway.

As long as it is dark. Gotta be dark. And atmospheric. And hypnotic. And all that stuff that makes us vibe at the club.

And while it does push all those traditional dance-floor buttons, there’s a drama embedded in this composition that pulls me in. And keeps rolling with me on it.

To the bitter end: I’m in.

---

Both are added to our really quite excellent Spotify playlist, “This Is Techno”, where it resides with the other great picks we’ve done over the last few months. Well worth following, if we are to say so ourselves.