Here are a few tracks I’ve been listening to over the past couple months. Two themes influencing my selection, which are more or less in direct conflict with one another: going to Movement in May (a blast) lent some new energy to my fizzling interest in techno, and the brief window of good weather in New York brought some sunnier music to the front of my queue.

Mike Dehnert - Blattwerk Roh (Ursprung, 2024)

^ Beware – that’s not the track, but a more civilized cut from 13 years ago on which it’s based. I can’t find the full thing on the internet just yet. You can listen to a minute of the real deal here.

I’ve always appreciated Mike Dehnert for his clear obsession with the basic elements of techno. Germanly, he draws fairly solid lines around the style and innovates from the center out, coming damn close to the topos hyperuranios in the process (Freiraum, 2008). In the limit of his distillation program you get Blattwerk Roh, which is essentially a quarter-note loop (!) with some slow-turning knobs and a couple open hihat drops.

Sandra - Maria Magdalena (The Long Play, 1985)

Transcendent eurotrash. Not only a powerful pop lead, Sandra’s voice has hints of Elizabeth Fraser mystery and Vanessa Hay grit.

feeluvsyou - i love ronin!!!!! (i love ronin!!!!!, 2021)

Only version I can find on YouTube is sped up god damn it. Listen on SoundCloud. I’m really sad that feeluvsyou is gone. We’re losing a bunch of talented kids in this scene.

Multunes - Summer Dream of Love (Summer Dream of Love, 2023)

It’s basically donk lmao. I guess I like donk now? I’m gonna buy a bunch of polo shirts and move to Liverpool. As they say, rock bottom has trapdoors.

This particular donk though has the chrome exterior and wraparound-bullshit-sincerity of a Danny L Harle production. And it doesn’t give you exactly what you want, which I can appreciate as a supporter of things like Bulgarian choral music in the club.

Zargo - Snapshot (Snapshot, 1995)

BKA The Advent. Some really dialed techno-for-DJs that sounds fresh 30 years on. Messrs. Zargo (a.k.a. The Advent) like to keep us on our toes with those blue-note stabs.

DJ 光光光 - Planetary Natural Love Gas Webbin’ 199999 (2003)

BKA Yamatsuka Eye. Gloriously batshit white-knuckle journey through the outer limits of the DJ’able. This is the kind of vibe I aspired to back when I was a radio DJ: mostly unfamiliar, taking lots of hard turns, but with some kind of consistent current running through it.

Blastromen - Battlenet (Human Beyond, 2010)

Cheesed up maximalist transhumanist industrial dance. It’s named after the Blizzard games store (right?) for christ sakes. I have a soft spot for this stuff in the same way I do for Nero. It’s mostly not cool these days to lean hard into grandiose, dense, high-effort music, but someone’s gotta do it.

Sewerslvt - Looming.Sorrow.Descent (Skitzofrenia Simulation, 2021)

I’ve been listening to a whole lot of Sewerslvt this past year. Don’t worry, I’m doing fine. Since I first heard Draining Love Story I’ve been convinced she’s a generational artist of sorts. Her synthesis of DnB, trance, hardcore, anime and whatever else feels genuinely new, and the whole schizzed out amphetamine atmosphere was at least a couple years early to the party.

Luciano Cilio - Dialoghi del presente (1977)

Rumor has it this is what Chef Boyardee was listening to when he invented ravioli.

Black Kray - Gucci Mane Wrist (Still Struglin Still Shinnin, 2015)

Black Kray AKA Sickboyrari is a genius and future billionaire

Francis Bebey - Sanza tristesse (Psychedelic Sanza 1982-1984, 2014)

This anthology is stunning from front to back, full of poetically jilted phrasing, freewheeling rhythms and forest mystery. A sanza is one of those metal thumb pianos you see around sometimes. I’ve never heard it deployed in anywhere near as impressive a setting — but then again, I can only name one sanza player.

Hardsequencer - From the Ear to the Brain (Move Fast, 1993)

170 bpm is my favorite tempo lately. Nothing fancy here, just a speedy flailing hardcore good time.