To many, Ben Klock is techno. Given his lengthy CV, this is hardly surprising. Resident at the largely undisputed Mecca of techno, part of the stacked roster of the epoch-defining Ostgut Ton, and creator of numerous staples found in many techno jocks’ bags, Klock is a producer and DJ who seems equally at home with both professions. It hasn’t been immediate success for Klock, though, as he’s spent much of his career in the trenches both finding his sound and a receptive audience. As the craving for Klock’s brand of techno grows more and more widespread by the day, so do the number of its imitators. LWE sat down with Klock in New York to talk about the ’90s, the warmth of Berghain techno and his dad’s experience at the club.

How did you first get into techno?

Ben Klock: I guess my first experience with electronic, four-to-the-floor music was in the late ’80s with the first acid house parties that came to Berlin; they blew my mind. That was the first time that I saw strobe lights and loud music; like, really loud music. So this was a phase in the late ’80s, and then I got back into other types of music again. I played piano and guitar and had different interests. Somehow I just got back into techno.

In like the mid-90s or something?

Yeah, like the early to mid-’90s. I was talking earlier today about this Josh Wink thing I remember: “I Am Ready.” [low voice] “I am ready.” I remember hearing that when I was on the dance floor and thinking, ‘Wow, that’s what I really want.’

Tell me a little about your musical training.

I took piano lessons from an early age for quite a few years. At one point in my life I wanted to go to university to study jazz piano, but I realized it’s not my thing to practice eight or nine hours a day, going through scales. I was more interested in composing, using all sorts of sounds. So I totally quit playing piano and I taught myself guitar, but I also quit that at some point. I was really more into exploring new sounds and everything that was going on in the ’90s was new for me.

Your first record was on your own label, Clockworks, which seemed to be a precursor to the current Klockworks. From when you first encountered techno, what made you want to make it and then gave you the push to set up your own label and put something out yourself?

That belonged to the label of Jazzanova. Back then I was a resident DJ at Delicious Donut. They played all kinds of stuff from acid jazz to drum n bass, to house and things like that. I was still kind of looking for what I really wanted, so this was the first attempt at making some music. It’s not really related to what I’m doing now, I think, though maybe it is.

It looked like it was only one release though…

I was just trying out something and I realized that Jazzanova at that time was going into a completely different direction than I wanted to go. It didn’t make sense to work together any more.

Was it after that that you hooked up with BPitch Control?

Maybe a few years after that. I knew all those guys like Sascha Funke and Ellen Alien, they were friends. We were like all these Berlin guys.

That label was sort of your home for a while…

I wouldn’t call it a home. My first real home, where I felt that I have a home label or even a home at all in this scene, was when I got involved with Berghain and Ostgut Ton. I really felt that I wanted to be there, and that’s where I feel at home. I didn’t feel at home anywhere else before, at other clubs or other labels.

Once you found that with Ostgut and Berghain, do you think your music changed?

I guess a little bit. There were other influences, and I kind of had the feeling of “I’m finally there.” It was what I was looking for and it just kind of fit together at that point. When I first played at Berghain and felt the vibe, surely it influences you, the whole architecture there and everything.

How do you decide which releases go on Klockworks and which on Ostgut?

It’s actually quite easy. I have a feeling that certain tracks are more Klockworks tracks and others more Berghain things. My recent Compression Session EP; that A-side is a typical Ostgut release. It wouldn’t make sense on Klockworks because Klockworks has more of a draft feeling; the Klockworks releases are more tracky, in a way. So the more musical or epic stuff I do for Ostgut.

What is your reason for wanting to put your records out without promotion?

I think it just comes naturally; just making music and putting it out. Not caring about the promotional side. Most of us, as artists, don’t want to deal with that stuff. When it’s a small label like Klockworks, a one-man show, I don’t want to do promotion. I mean, I don’t care if I sell a couple of hundred more with promotion; I just don’t believe in promotion that much anymore. I got overwhelmed with so many promotional emails and promo stuff. I really don’t know how to deal with it any more. Maybe it’s also the idea that I don’t want to be one more promo mail out of hundreds of mail outs.

Well, the aesthetic of stamped white labels without promotion is sort of coming back.

Yeah, I mean, even five years ago we had some labels like that, but this style is growing more and more, that’s true. Even that, though, can get to the point where it’s kind of ridiculous. Every label with a stamp on it is like, ‘Wow, it has to be something great because they don’t do promotion. They just do stamps, so it has to be good.’ That’s the attitude sometimes. If it goes into this direction, that everyone just wants to do this, it’s the same bullshit.

When did you become a resident at Berghain?

Berghain is now six years old, and it was the time before that, like seven or eight years ago, with all the electroclash around (that stuff was kind of a sellout if you ask me). I didn’t have any resident club at the time and I wasn’t having a lot of fun. In Berlin, the only place where I really wanted to play was Ostgut, or the new Berghain. I got the chance to play there once. It was one of the best sets I’ve ever done. Then they asked me to be a resident. It was a moment in life when you feel like you’re in the right place at the right moment. It just all came together and made sense. Ellen was actually the one who introduced me to the guys and said, ‘Why don’t you just play there?’

Do you think that the legendary aspect of Berghain hurts the club, or do you think it’s part of what Berghain seeks to do?

I think they just do what they want to. Even when I started to play at the new venue, at Berghain when it opened up, a lot of people said the new Berghain wasn’t what the old Ostgut was. I really liked the old Ostgut, but I thought the new club was even better; and back then I thought we were really doing something special, and that sooner or later this will really spread out. I had the feeling that everything was working, from the inside to the outside. The owners, how they treat the people that work there, the vibe. Everything was exactly how I always thought a club should work. You have the feeling that you’re part of a cultural thing and not just throwing parties; parties where, after you play, you have to look for the promoter to get paid. I really felt that the people behind Berghain are interested in more than just making money and throwing parties; interested in not only techno but other cultural aspects as well. I thought that sooner or later more people will realize that it’s something special. Sure, there’s kind of a hype thing, and hype can be negative after a while, but I think the Berghain crew are aware of this hype and we try to just keep at what we’re doing. I think we’re quite successful; to not pay too much attention to the stories or the hype. We just want to do what we do best, and that’s still our goal. I don’t pay to much attention to the stories.

You mentioned “culture” a lot.

It’s both partying like crazy and the cultural aspect. I think it’s really good that there’s a place where you can just walk in and leave your everyday life behind, because it stays open until forever and it’s a universe of its own. There aren’t many places where you can do that anymore; that vibe was there in the 90′s, and in that sense Berghain captures that. On the musical side, I think we strive for timelessness; we don’t want to follow trends that are around for only one or two years. Most of us, as artists, get our inspiration from the old stuff. Basic Channel is really timeless music. You can still listen to it in 20 or 30 years. Some of the stuff today, however, is for now and only now. You won’t listen to it a year from now. This timeless idea is part of Ostgut, Berghain and Hard Wax.

In New York there have been these Berghain/Panorama Bar nights. There were a couple in Japan and there was talk of something at Ibiza…

Yeah there was one night. I wasn’t there.

Do you think these nights properly capture the spirit of Berghain and Panorama Bar, or do you think it’s even the point?

I get it from some people who say, ‘You bring us the Berghain vibe and usually we don’t have that; we don’t hear that kind of music here!’ That’s what I hear from people, ‘It’s almost like Berghain,’ or something like that. I never try to bring the Berghain vibe anywhere, I just play what I play.

Does it make sense to export the club, and can you?

Surely it’s not the same. Berghain is unique; there is no place like it in the world. It doesn’t mean that it’s better, it’s just unique. You can still play the music you play at Berghain elsewhere and it’s works, it’s fun. Maybe the music captures a bit of the vibe.

As a DJ at Berghain you’re usually playing marathon sets, but increasingly a lot of the Ostgut guys are being invited to play big festivals, where you don’t have much time to play. How do you try and present your style of DJing when you only have an hour or an hour and a half?

Yeah, it’s a challenge; I ask myself that sometimes. Two hours is OK; it’s kind of like the international standard in a club. But when it comes to festivals, where you only have like one or one-and-a-half hours, it’s really different and you can’t capture this vibe. When Ricardo plays these long, never ending things, you can’t do that in one hour; it’s just not possible. It’s a different kind of playing. Last time at Berghain I played alone for 11 hours, which is really epic. You’re right, most people know me or relate me to these long, late sets, which I really like. But when I’m playing elsewhere, sometimes I have a two-hour slot and people come for only two hours and party like crazy. Sometimes I like this compressed, short, completely extreme set; like “boom!” and then it’s over. I still don’t feel very comfortable with these really short sets, they are challenging for me.

Would you say that you can’t really show yourself properly as a DJ in such a short space of time?

I know that I have my best moments during long sets. After three or four hours, suddenly I have two really deep hours where I don’t really think any more. I’m completely in the groove, and that’s when I do my best. There’s no chance that this will happen in a one hour set. Though, it can be fun to play a short, banging set and try to be 100 percent.

What did you like about the album process? Is it something that you want to do again?

It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. Even when I was a child I dreamed of making an album. Back then I thought I would have a band, but I thought that at one point in my life I would make an album, so it was a dream come true. It was clear I wanted to make an album that worked as an album, not only club tracks. When I finished it was kind of a relief; like, ‘Now it’s done and now I’m ready to make a 12″ again.’ But I’m sure there will be another album, maybe I’ll start this year. I think sometimes it takes some time to be inspired again for something like an album. It takes time to build a new basic idea or concept, because it wouldn’t make sense to just collect tracks now and throw out another album and call it Two. I think when the time is right I will feel it; when there is a new idea that wants to come out. I really enjoyed doing something different from what I had done before, to make tracks that don’t have a bass drum or something. I really enjoy that process. Maybe the next album will be even further removed from club music.

Did you feel more satisfaction from the album than from a 12″?

I kind of did. Well, it depends. Everyone works differently. I think Shed said he only worked on his last album for a month or so; that is really different. For me, making an album was like this huge mountain that I didn’t know how to climb. Then it starts forming and developing and you feel like you know which tracks you want to put together, what makes sense. You think about the tracklist and how to combine the songs. In every little process there are so many decisions: how you want to arrange a track, choosing the artwork. I was really satisfied with it; I think I will still like it in ten years. Making a 12″ is not really such a big deal; it’s much faster. Like my last Klockworks, the track on the A-side is like two or three years old.

Your most major recent release was Berghain 04. It sort of goes back to what were saying about having to fit your DJ style into just over an hour, but here obviously you have a lot more control and you can spend a lot of time on it.

Most of the time was spent choosing the tracks, since most of the tracks were exclusive. So, the bulk of the work was talking to people, collecting tracks and choosing the right ones.

Do you think that the CD is a more accurate representation of your DJ sets than your sets at festivals?

I don’t see mix CDs as the way I DJ, it’s just a thing on its own. For this mix CD I wanted people to listen to it at home or in the car. Sometimes if I hear a hard banging techno set then I’m done with it. I don’t want to listen to that stuff every day when I’m sitting in the car. So the idea was to make it softer. Sure, it represents my style in a way, mixing things together, building things, but it’s also something of its own.

There’s a lot of your own tracks on there, as well as all the exclusives. Did you make it more as a producer than as a DJ?

It’s a combination of being a DJ and producer, I think. It’s a perfect combination of the two skills.

Berghain 04 was a very warm CD, where sometimes you guys are described with the words…

“Cold,” “relentless,” “steel.” I never thought these words described us, or myself, accurately. “Cold, relentless, techno.” I think Berghain is really not the place where you only hear this kind of music. There are a lot of productions that are called Berghain techno, and every time I hear that I get bored because that’s not the only thing that I’m interested in. I’m interested in good music, not just dark, monotonous stuff. It can be monotonous and dark and can be great, but it has to be something special. I really like warm stuff. I think the sound at Berghain is that warm bass drum; not this kind of “kxkdk,” but this kind of “boom,” when it has this nice warm belly. This is what I like, that it has some ass and muscles but that it’s also warm. Maybe you could also say there’s a female aspect; it’s not only macho music. Especially with Berghain 04; I made it in the winter and when I finished it I didn’t listen to it anymore. It was only when it came out that I listened to it again. I was driving through the city, the sun was shining, and I realized it’s really a kind of a summer CD. It made perfect sense to release it in the summer. The intro and the first few tracks really have a warm, sunny feeling. I was happy that it had this warm feeling, especially at a time where people always related us to these words “cold, hard, banging techno.” At Berghain we play some house sometimes. It’s not all about the dark stuff.

So you think some of the music that’s called Berghain techno wouldn’t even get played at Berghain?

Yeah, I’m positive about that. I get sent so many promos saying, ‘Here, this is something for you, this is Berghain, you will like it.’ As soon as I read this I know it’s not for me. It just bores me, this so called “Berghain techno.”

What do you have planned next? Where do you see the Berghain sound going?

I’m not sure. Lately Marcel [Dettmann] and I have been talking about that. It’s always challenging to not stay with the same sound forever. Sure, we will never stray too far, but we are always looking for something to open up the concept or new directions to go in. There will definitely be another Dettmann/Klock thing in the future — hopefully 2011. We’re not sure what we’re gonna do yet, we’ll just see what inspires us. For myself, I think I will put some more effort into Klockworks. 2010 had only one release, 2009 had maybe two release. I don’t have a schedule for Klockworks, but there will definitely be another DVS-1 and some other stuff.

Do you want to sort of see Klockworks not only as a vehicle for your own stuff? You put out the one DVS-1 record, but do you want to make Klockwork into its own sort of family?

I’m not planning something like that, but I’m open. It depends on who I meet. Before I met Zak [DVS-1] it was just a platform for my stuff, but when I met him, right away I knew, ‘OK, I need this music, it has to come out.’ So the basic idea changed at that moment. Now I’m open to other artists as well, but I’m really not looking for anything. I’m really, really picky and I really have to like it personally. I’m not looking to build up a big family of artists, I’ll just let it be open.

You said that you guys ignore the hype behind Berghain and keep your eyes down and keep focused on what you’re doing, but I imagine that it’s hard to avoid.

Yeah. Sometimes it’s strange when there are people in front of the DJ booth screaming ‘Berghain!’ and I’m like, ‘Um, yeah, ok, whatever.’ I’m Ben Klock. I’m just doing my thing, and sometimes it’s just a little bit too much with the whole Berghain thing.

Would you say Berghain is a place for purist techno?

I would say it’s a place where you can really experience techno in a very pure way. When people who are not related to this music at all, who think techno is some commercial bullshit, boom-boom-boom thing, who don’t have an idea what techno culture is really about: go on the Berghain floor, be in the middle on the dance floor and stay there for an hour or so. That’s the place where you can really understand what it’s about and in that way I would say it’s pure experience; a way to really feel what techno is about. Even for my father, he recently came to Berghain for the first time at the age of 75. He stayed there for ten hours, didn’t even want to leave, and after that he said, ‘Now I understand what you are doing.’ Because he really experienced it; the sound and the vibe there, the architecture and the idea of playing the music the way we play it. I wouldn’t say it’s only for music lovers or nerds, but it’s experiencing techno in its most pure form without the showing off, “look at me” aspect of some other clubs. I know some people go there just because you can be yourself there, and do what you do. I know some actresses who just want to be there because nobody looks at them and says, ‘You’re this and that.’ You can just be yourself there. And that’s a good thing.

It almost seems like a certain level of hype sort of goes against what Berghain actually stands for, which is what you just said, the idea of going there not to be seen and yet when something get really hyped…

Yeah, that’s a conflict maybe. But they still have their rules and beliefs, like you’re still not allowed to take pictures there, which is good. Everywhere else is all about is about being Youtubed and having your picture taken, so this is different. It’s just the basic idea of being there for the music and being yourself, doing what you want to do without being caught on camera and stuff like that. [chuckles]

I can only assume that I’m guilty of it, but another sort of truth that the media will stick to is describing Berghain music in terms of the gritty architecture. How do you think the architecture plays into the sound?

There is a relation between the room, the surroundings and the music. I think the reason techno got so big in Berlin makes sense; after the wall came down the city looked a certain way, and maybe certain kinds of music belong to certain surroundings. I wouldn’t expect this type of music to be created in a nice, easygoing, sunny place in the south, like on a island. You kind of need this urban feeling and this concrete around you to create these ideas. This kind of, I always forget the title of the movie, it’s old and from the ’20s…

Metropolis?

Yeah, it always reminds me of Metropolis. It’s like, when you hear Jeff Mills you have certain pictures, or certain ideas associated with it, and it makes perfect sense that he made this Metropolis thing. In a certain way, the architecture of Berghain connects to the music that we make.

You say that techno is as very urban form…

Yeah I would say so. You have these Goa raves in nature, but that certain kind of techno is really related to Berlin and to urban feeling.

Well, you have the Labyrinth festival in Japan.

Yeah I mean, I played at a festival this year in Japan that was also in the mountains, a completely backpackers thing, together with Autechre and others like that. It was great, it was perfect, but people who create this music, they mostly come from the city. Especially in Detroit, there is a connection between the city and this kind of music.

How do you and Marcel approach the collaborative process? With DJs having very busy schedules, collaboration lately seems to be sending parts back and forth. How do you guys approach that?

We decided not to do that. We have similar tastes in music and we always kind of know what the other one likes and that is very inspiring. When we do the next project it will definitely be different than the first project that we did, because back then Marcel had just started producing. So I don’t know exactly how it would look now, but we’ve already said that if we’re going to do it again we’ll definitely sit together and not send files back and forth. We see each other quite a lot, but it can be hard because of our schedules.

So, where do you head from here?

I’m flying to Minneapolis tomorrow with DVS-1. We’ll have a party at a place that he owns and throws parties at. It’s supposed to have a great sound system because he was into renting sound systems. I’m looking forward to playing there; It’s just going to be a dark box with a good sound system.

It’s funny, because Minneapolis is not a city that would really come to your mind if you were thinking of techno capitals in the States and yet…

And I remember last time when I played there, I was in New York before and people were saying, ‘Oh, you’re going to Minneapolis….’ They were kind of snobby, like ‘I didn’t know there was anything there, so don’t expect much.’ It was a small party, small crowd. It’s a small scene, but they’re completely alive and knowledgeable about the music. Some people told me that Zak is responsible for a lot of that. He threw some parties a few years ago with people like Robert Hood and Derrick May and did a lot for the city, for techno culture there.

Is Berlin the techno capital of Germany?

If you’re from Frankfurt you would say that Frankfurt was always the city. But I’m from Berlin, so I would say Berlin. There was always this connection between Detroit and Berlin, especially with Tresor. So maybe that’s why Berlin became the Mecca of techno. So many artists move to Berlin. I spoke today about it with Function, and he said he was getting more inspiration in one year in Berlin than he got in the last ten years in New York. I think this will change again sometime soon; it will be a different city. I hear so many people saying that Berlin is like New York was back then, and that they’re not sure how long it will stay like this. It will get commercialized everywhere. There are areas where they’ve built these business buildings where there used to be alternative bars and stuff like that, so it’s already changing. But still, it’s a great city for living relatively cheaply and for making art. Sometimes when I hear about all these people moving to Berlin, especially in the electronic music scene, sometimes I think, ‘Why don’t some people just stay where they are?’ because I don’t want Berlin to be the only techno city. I dunno, people used to go to Ibiza, and now they all come to Berlin to party. There are still great parties everywhere in the world, so I think it’s not the case that Berlin will be the only techno city, but it’s certainly the main techno city.

Do you think it’s a German thing?

I wouldn’t really say German culture has much to do with it, but the fact that the wall came down created this special situation in the city. In the East we had all the vacant places, all these buildings that didn’t belong to anyone, and you could just throw parties everywhere, and then just open up next week somewhere else. That was a good vibe for this music. The spirit at that time was a perfect match to the idea of techno.

Any last thought you would like to add?

There is one thing I would like to add. I don’t want to sound snobby. When I say we don’t want to pay attention to all the hype, it’s might seem like we don’t care. But we really do care and I really appreciate everything that is happening. A few years back, I always thought this was going to be big, that more and more people will appreciate what is happening around Ostgut and Berghain. I really believed in it, and I think when you really believe in something it will grow. You have an amount of belief and energy that you put into it and at some point it just has to grow, it’s just natural. But, on the other hand, I never would have expected that the music that we’re doing would get so much attention. I’m always surprised when I see young kids dancing in front of me who are 19 and I play the hardest banging techno from the mid-’90s and they say, ‘Yeeeahh!’ I wonder, ‘How do you appreciate this kind of music? You should be listening to some other crap.’

Well, as long as the music’s timeless…

But still I’m surprised sometimes because I think it takes a little bit of education to get into this music. They didn’t have the chance to grow up with this kind of music for years, so sometimes I’m really surprised that young kids are caught by this kind of intense music. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s nice to see that. There are so many other options, so many easier options, like more commercial, pleasant, catchy stuff that you can fall for. I think we kind of have a kind of mature approach to it. It’s fun to see people enjoying it.

[Ostgut Ton]

It would seem logical that a label begins by releasing the music of young blood, and then, as those neophytes evolve into veterans, bring more young blood into the fold. Ostgut Ton, steadfast in their commitment to not giving a fuck, took a somewhat different tack: let your stable of core artists establish themselves, and then bring in some other grizzled vets to keep them company. Hands don’t get much established than those of Rolando Ray Rocha, the Detroit techno legend whose 1999 EP Knights Of The Jaguar as the Aztec Mystic nearly made Underground Resistance a household name, so it makes sense he’d wind up as Ostgut’s latest next-big-thing-of-sorts. The 5 To 8 EP (suggested Sunday AM window for rotation?) is neither DJ Rolando’s nor the label’s finest hour in purely musical terms, but as Ben Klock revealed on his stately Berghain 04 mix last year, these tracks can do a lot of work. And what is Ostgut Ton if not one of the most uncompromisingly DJ-centric labels on the planet?

Remember a few years ago when so many producers thought all a track needed to be legit was a vocal sample name-checking one of house and techno’s ancestral homelands? Luckily for “De Cago,” these sorts of invocations just serve to drive home a point: there’s no chance of anyone crediting its manic Los Hermanos bounce to the musical legacy of Winnipeg or Marrakesh. “De Cago” is subtle and tasteful and effective — Klock used it to glue together Berghain 04‘s lockstep first half with its more rhythmically diverse second half — but it doesn’t feel whole without bookends. “Junie,” which closed down Berghain 04, does a better job of getting by on its own merits. With an intense, slightly stepping beat slithering along in half-time, its warm ambient chords and sour treble accents sound markedly more sinister than they would otherwise. If you have some gigs on your calendar, then the 5 To 8 EP might really come in handy; otherwise, I’d say snag yourself a copy of Klock’s superb mix for a little context. Regardless, I’m happy to see Rolando, a techno warrior if ever there was one, back leading the charge.

[Ostgun Ton]

So much is said about the Berghain brand of techno being cold and steely that it’s easy to just accept it as fact, when in reality some of the warmest techno and house I’ve ever heard originates from that old power plant near Berlin’s Ostbahnhof. Although the Berghain’s boys are fully capable of making the frigid stuff, that’s only half of the story. Compression Session, Ben Klock’s latest EP for Ostgut Ton, offers up some of his most melodic work in recent memory. Many will remember “Compression Session 1″ as the centerpiece of Klock’s recent Berghain 04 mix CD, and here it’s given the whole A-side to properly radiate. The kick drum is tough as nails, but serves mostly as an anchor to an incandescent, almost anthemic tangle of synth strains.

“Static Test” is a more along the lines of what we expect from Klock. Raw, potent grooves pound against the air and move your bones like the aural equivalent of an adrenaline shot while controlled melodic washes drizzle down from above. “Compression Session 2″ dials back the intensity with more warm analog sounds simmering just under the surface. Bone-crunching techno may be what Klock’s best know for, but at this point no one should be surprised by the emotion, however subtle, he imbues in his tracks, and Compression Session is a powerful statement in this vein. Combining the serene and pounding, lithe and jacking, Klock easily notches another killer onto his belt.

[Ostgut Ton]

For a label that’s only been around for five years, Ostgut Tonträger has done a fine job of canonizing itself at an alarming rate. At this point, if the almighty Ostgut isn’t mentally evoked at the very mention of techno, you must not be paying attention. As the official release outlet of the mythical Berghain/Panorama Bar club in Berlin, they’ve not only reinforced the club’s lofty reputation but have steered the gaze of an entire world of techno toward the doors of the abandoned power plant. In 2010, steely banging techno meant for the Berghain is the standard.

Ostgut Ton have always had a stoic austerity about them. Their music speaks for itself, and the stark, beautifully designed sleeves only add to the chilly indifference. Yet they’ve tried their hand at grand gestures as well, namely 2007′s ambitious Shut Up And Dance! Updated compilation. A ballet set to techno curated by the label, it made for a uniformly great accompanying CD but the performance itself engendered a mixed reception; safe to say, one of the few possible slip-ups the label has ever committed. It seems they’ve learned their lesson. The celebration of their fifth birthday (a few enticing celebratory club nights aside), Fünf is a purely musical affair, a 2-CD compilation containing all new material from nearly everyone ever associated with the Ostgut crew and then some. Each track on Fünf is built from a field recordings made by the Berlin-based UK producer Emika (“Cooling Room”), recordings of the very inner-workings of the club itself. It’s an enviably brilliant idea that audibly stitches the very character, the very essence of the Berghain into the music.

Two possible worries need to be dispelled before continuing. Label compilations like this are rarely cohesive and are often patchy collections of leftover rejects; not so here. Similarly, the idea of a 2-hour-plus album composed of the same palette of sounds seems a bit frightening — but thankfully, not so. Each producer imagines Emika’s field recordings as a blank slate on which to project themselves, taking a shared sound palette and constructing their own idiosyncratic grooves and sounds. Every tune is a neat little portrait of each artist painted with the same brush — like a casting call for the label’s growing cohort — in one fell swoop solving any issues of continuity or dullness.

While it’s a mammoth listen to digest in one go, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better collection of singular techno tracks. It’s difficult to pick highlights out of a collection so consistent, so varied, and so thoroughly impressive, but there are a few blinders. Label head, one half of MyMy, and hush-house producer Nick Höppner provides the compilation’s most fragile, transcendent moment with “I.S.P,” a syncopated house track that spills out delicate percussion, the sound of tube amps lightly knocking together. Marcel Fengler throws down one of his typically violent rhythms in “Shiraz” and Fiedel contorts the industrial noise into a thrashing raver characteristic of this year’s anthemic “Nous Sommes MMM.” Meanwhile the big names maintain their reputations: Herr Dettmann drops a track far more brutal than anything on his debut album in “Scourer,” which strips and polishes the source material into a typically sleek banger, while Ben Klock continues in his new hollowed-out house(ish) direction with “Bear.” Perhaps most surprisingly, Shed drops his most straightforward track since “That Beats Everything!” with “Boom Room,” the industrial sounds a natural match for his breaky techno.

The house quotient is well-represented — no one’s forgotten about Panorama Bar. Prosumer’s “Daybreak” sounds like it was dug up out of a time capsule, and Elif Bicer lays a lovely vocal on top of the pillowy production from Murat Tepeli on “Hold On.” Other producers find an encouraging middle ground between deep house and minimal; Cassy’s contribution features a haywire drum machine, Dinky wraps warm samples in fractured minimal arms, and Tama Sumo’s debut production “Iron Glance” is a gaunt, wiry thing. There are enough experiments to keep even the most jaded, fairweather dancers interested. Len Faki drops a downtrodden electro-ambient weeper with “Kraft Und Licht,” Norman Nodge provides a near-ambient thing that sounds more like a field recording than the actual field recording and SCB’s “Down Moment” is almost painfully sharp, kicks and snares refashioned into daggers. Soundstream even makes a hallowed appearance with “Wenn Meine Mutti Wüsste” where he fashions misty dub techno chords out of the industrial sounds, cutting his soft clouds with bits of metallic impurities and factory detritus.

In spite the kind of backward-looking introspection a birthday often instigates, Fünf has its eye firmly on the unknown and uncompromising future. It’s so very Ostgut of them to give us two whole discs of new material rather than a label best-of which itself could have been the best thing released this year anyway. But nothing less should be expected from the label that relentlessly pushes forward, the label that not only sets the trends but predicts them and then moves on while everyone is catching up. You might as well get used to the sounds of Fünf because you’re going to be hearing their influence ringing in the tinnitus-riddled ears of techno for years to come.

[Ostgut Ton]

What makes a mix great? It’s a question I ask myself every time I sink my teeth into a new Ostgut Ton compilation. They’re one of the last labels putting out a relevant commercial mix series, and they’ve kept up the CD mix’s luster on the backs of their world class residents. But the fact that so few mixes appear in physical form anymore certainly doesn’t translate into less competition. We’ve never had access to more of them, and as Chris Miller can attest, many of the free, downloadable ones are as good, if not better, than the store-bought variety. What makes a great mix hasn’t changed. But if you’re planning to charge for the thing, it had better be pretty goddamn great.

And that’s basically the only qualm I have with Ben Klock’s Berghain 04. It’s sexy, tough, and quite fantastic, undoubtedly among the best in the Ostgut series. But it’s not mindblowing, nor is it head and shoulders above much of what’s on offer from Fact, RA or us week in and week out. There’s very little, aside from the physical copy you’ll stick into the CD slot on your laptop and then file away into the abyss, that sets Berghain 04 apart from many of the podcasts you subscribe to. (Marcel Dettmann’s recent Fact mix, worlds better than the commercially released Berghain 02, provides a particularly devastating example of this.) On a dollars-and-cents level, I suppose it’d be hard to give the thing more than a soft recommend. And isn’t there something almost maddening about paying a guy with Klock’s reputation not to utterly destroy your synapses?

But when I listen very carefully, I find something very different about the tone and intentions of this mix, and I think it’s one of the reasons this mix is essential, and the series it comes from still potently relevant. All art, to a certain extent, raises an artist’s profile (and in a scene where DJ gigs often pay the bills for producers, there’s an element of this in practically every release). But unlike a mix you get for free, this mix isn’t for promotional use only. It doesn’t accompany an interview or herald a big festival appearance or celebrate an anniversary for a website; it’s a musical statement. Ostgut has always been about placing techno and house above the fray, and that’s precisely where Berghain 04 is simmering. Ben Klock has given us a commercial-free statement on techno executed artfully.

All DJs leave their stamp on a mix, but Berghain 04 finds its selector working very much behind the scenes. After some opening ambiance from Newworldaquarium alias 154, Klock pushes through three deep techno tracks — DVS1′s “Pressure,” Junior Boys’ “Work (Marcel Dettmann Remix)” (RELEASE THIS GODDAMN MASTERPIECE, SOMEBODY!), and Martyn’s exclusive “Mini Luv” — with the smoothest, most hands-offish mixing imaginable. With the lightest tap, he’s put techno into motion. Until an STL locked groove and Levon Vincent’s somewhat raucous “The Long Life” shake listeners out of a deep trance, the mix almost has the quality of a Donato Dozzy set: the music itself recedes into the background, leaving you with a beat and a feeling that feels too natural to be sneaking into your body through your ears. Klock’s near-mystical ability to harness energy from his tracks without the alchemy of huge mixes continues, extending even to some of Berghain 04‘s hardest sections (Kevin Gorman’s “7am Stepper” into Klock’s own “Compression Session 1″; James Ruskin’s “Graphic” through Rolando’s “Junie”). It also lets him handle classic material like Tyree’s “Nuthin Wrong” less jarringly than Marcel Dettmann did on Berghain 02. Instead of lathering these tracks in his DJ style, he inhabits them like a particularly subtle marinade. There’s great confidence in this sort of DJing, and it makes this mix particularly compelling. But it also feels a touch staid. I’ve listened to this mix perhaps dozens of times, and depending on my mood, “hypnotic” can morph quickly into “stagnant.” When a mix isn’t filled to the brim with the exuberance of big-personality DJing, its thread gets pretty hard to find.

But perhaps I’m too used to hearing DJs mixing to impress. We’re in a scene rife with young talent looking to spread their own word, and not many of them have the luxury of not blowing our minds. As long as the Berghain remains open and relevant and mythical, Ben Klock has as much job security as anyone in techno. He doesn’t have to grab us by their ears and sonically beg us to pay close attention to him; he can take a different path toward greatness. Berghain 04 asks that you meet if halfway, and despite the entrance fee, you absolutely should.

[Kontra Musik]

When I saw that Ben Klock had been commissioned to remix Jason Fine, my gut reaction was to flinch in discomfort. After all, the Berghain resident’s music isn’t really known for its sense of romance or emotion, and here he was reworking a track from of the most seductively introspective electronic music albums of recent years. It didn’t really help when Klock’s take on “Many to Many” started off with those trademark dense drums — albeit somewhat more housey and skippier — that define his Klockworks label. When the robotic looped vocal sample dropped, I actually began to wonder if Klock was taking his neo-techno functionalist shtick to new extremes or was just having a giggle at himself. But then Fine’s gorgeously warm chords flow into the arrangement, redeeming the remix and giving a new dimension to those dense drums, a human, pathos-laden touch to Klock’s robotic muscle. What could surpass this seemingly incompatible match?

Given the tone and reference points of Oni Ayhun’s releases, it made him, unlike Klock, a natural candidate to take on Fine. While Ayhun’s own material moves closer to the “intelligent” techno nuances of early to mid-90s Warp than Fine’s U.S.-focused production, the sentiments driving their work are similar. Listening to Ayhun’s take on “Control Voltage,” this is readily apparent. Indeed, it could be argued that his remix favors an even more back to basics approach. Over shuffling drums that aren’t radically dissimilar to those so effectively deployed on Kyle Hall’s new Hyperdub offering, Ayhun weaves in melodies that make equal nods to sublime Sheffield electronics and oriental mysticism and welds it to a lurching electronic bass line. The end result sounds like Shake and the Sublime back catalog getting reinterpreted by a whiz kid in downtown Tokyo — or wherever the enigmatic force behind the Ayhun project now resides.

You’ve been DJing for over a decade. What was the music that really got you into electronic music and DJing?

Well I started raving at quite an early age and really got into house and techno — like old Chicago stuff and old Detroit stuff, and at that time I loved going to parties and hearing DJ’s play and I loved to buy the music and that sort of stuff. But for some reason I never really felt like I belonged to that generation because I was quite young at that stage and I felt like I was more of a consumer of the music rather than being of any importance to it. But during the mid nineties I encountered drum & bass through some DJ’s who had come over to Holland and at that time I felt that that was my generation and that music was more for younger people. There was just some feeling that I could do something in this music. Around that time I went to London a couple of times and went to the Blue Note nights and really felt that vibe even more, especially seeing people like Photek and Jonny L and people like that. Because I was already buying music I decided to start throwing my own parties and to play at them myself too. So for me drum & bass was the music that I thought I could really do something constructive in rather than just going out and partying, you know? So that’s how it started for me. I kept buying records across many genres and continued doing my own events for a long time as well, and eventually Detroit techno and Chicago house came back to haunt me when I started making music. Because I thought all of those old influences were gone but they came flooding back when I went in to the studio.

It is interesting that after so many years of DJing you look at your collection and see that there really is almost everything in there.

It is. I remember I did this residency at a student club on a Thursday night and the owner told me he didn’t care what I played as long as it wasn’t drum & bass. This was about 2000-2001 and I was already quite well known as a drum & bass DJ so I thought, oh well I just have to play all my other stuff. So I decided to use the money I got paid from that to only buy records from other styles and that was around the time when broken beat and early two step and garage became big so I’m thanking myself that I did that now because I have a treasure of all of these hard to find records.

So when you started making drum & bass were there certain producers you started listening to around the time when you started changing up the tempos and making stuff that was perceived more as dubstep?

Yeah, as for the drum & bass part, I started making music because I felt I was missing something in what was out there. On one hand you had the really dark stuff that was coming out and then on the other hand was the very melodic, dreamy stuff. I was looking for something that was more in the middle and there were really not many producers doing that at the time. So that’s why I started making music in the first place. Then when I heard the first Burial stuff alongside Kode9 and Digital Mystikz it was a turning point for me. Drum & bass at that time was a bit too loud and forced. It was all so fast that you couldn’t really do too much to it; at 175 bpm it’s hard to get much melody into something. When I heard Digital Mystikz especially, I just thought their music was so spacious and that really inspired me. Obviously Burial had his own take on the music as well, and they were both very inspirational for me. So I decided to do something around the 140 bpm mark and did a tune called “Broken” without really knowing about what was dubstep. Marcus Intalex owned a label that I was recording on and he put it out and that’s where this whole other side of my career started.

I think a lot of people see you as having defected from drum & bass as though it’s some kind of country or a code of ethics which to live by, but I guess in reality it’s just that you’ve found more excitement in exploring these other avenues.

Yeah, I mean honestly I don’t really care about how people see it. I never really felt a part of drum & bass anyway and you just go where the music takes you. This is where the music has taken me and hopefully in a couple of years it will take me somewhere else again. As a producer you just keep working on your music and try and stay inspired without thinking about any scenes of genres. That’s not really what it’s about for me. But you know I haven’t really had anyone be negative toward me for changing the music I make. I’ve had a couple of people come up to me at gigs and ask when I’m going to make more drum & bass because they love those records of mine. All the other people who have talked about this leaving drum & bass thing have been producers who would love to do the same but for some reason they think that they can’t do it.

Let’s move on to Great Lengths. It is such a totally cohesive album from start to finish that really presents a particular view on how you were seeing that music at that time. Since then, listening to singles of yours, they present completely disparate styles from that album. How planned out was Great Lengths as an entire album?

Completely planned because what I did was take about four and half months off from playing gigs. I was writing a lot of music but it was fragmented by playing gigs and it became very hard to go into the studio and try and stay in that zone to make something. So I was able to do singles and able to remixes and stuff like that but I wanted to do the album so I took that time off to concentrate on it. I started from scratch really. I think there are only two tracks on the album that I had done before this break (“Vancouver” and “Natural Selection”) so they were the starting point for the album. I had another track called “Hear Me” about half way finished too.

You’re living in the United States at the moment. How has living there and living in other cities impacted your music?

Well I’m always quite inspired by places that I’ve lived in or places that I have visited, just like most musicians I think. I always use location names in song titles and love to record atmospherics so I always take a little sound recorder wherever I go. I’m living in the suburbs at the moment which is pretty strange for me because I’m very much a city boy and this place is very, very quiet. There are the mountains here and it is just outside of Washington DC so for me it is ideal at the moment because I play so many gigs at the weekends so it is nice to have somewhere peaceful to come back to. I have my studio here too so I can focus on my music too. But I do think that if I listen to my album I can hear that peace in there, whereas when I lived in Eindhoven and Rotterdam, those places are both quite hectic you know? So I’m very interested to see how the second album will sound because now that I am used to this environment it might give me a different perspective as well.

Your singles that you’ve released since Great Lengths have really showcased a harder side to you. Was this just you exploring other sides of music or was it intentional to let people know that you make different styles to what people had heard on the album?

Well the Efdemin remix I was commissioned to do before the album but I had to put my album out first so they were waiting for a year. But yeah, I guess all of the new stuff is a bit more stripped down and a bit more minimal in a way. Maybe that has a lot to do with playing a lot of gigs because that does always change your perspective on music. Up until recently I had been touring solidly since the album came out so that would definitely play a part in this. Also I think things are changing in electronic music very rapidly just over the last year. Like dubstep now is not what it used to be; it is branching out in so many different directions and that’s without even referencing the whole house music side of it from the UK right now. But you have so much going on right now with Flying Lotus taking on 125 bpm stuff and Dorian Concept making more dance stuff. You know, where is all this leading to I ask myself. So there is so much exciting stuff going on and I suppose I am just finding my own sound in this changed scenery as opposed to how things were about a year ago.

Your Fabric mix seems to have a bit more of a 4/4 influence that you would hear in one of your DJ sets normally. Can we expect more 4/4 based productions from you in the future?

I must say that the mix CD is sort of what I’ve been playing very recently as I have been playing a lot of different parties and more house and techno clubs like Berghain and Panorama Bar and places like that. So I’ve been digging in to my old New York house and Detroit and Chicago stuff, and my own productions as well. But I would say that is the way I have been going lately, at least that tempo anyway, something hovering around 130 bpm.

I find the sound you guys who have been making dubstep come up with when you turn it towards more of a house/techno vibe very interesting.

Yeah, well it’s still bass music you know. A lot of the stuff still revolves around bass lines or bass rhythms rather than a four to the floor kick. But it’s funny because it opens up a lot of possibilities for me as a DJ because I can then play this new London sound, which is quite percussive and then I can look back at my old Kenny Dope remixes or stuff from the Deeply Rooted House label, older Kerri Chandler things. Then there is the whole Berlin thing with people like Ben Klock, Marcel Dettmann and Shed who do the percussive techno thing and keep that soulful even though it’s quite brutal sometimes. So there are lots of things going on and it’s nice as a DJ to look in all these boxes and see what’s there and try to make this coherent sort of set from it all, and also a coherent mix CD.

Ben Klock has just remixed one of your tracks. Will we see you returning the favor?

Hmmm, he just needs to ask me. The thing is he asked me before, but Shed had just asked me to do a remix, and then Ben released his album and he wanted me to remix something from that but because I had just done the Shed one it didn’t really work out. But I’m in touch with him all the time and I hope I can do something for him at one point or another. His music is a big inspiration for me. He actually took one of the leftovers from the Great Lengths. It was another one of those stripped down techno things but even more so than you hear on the album, and he’s going to use that for his Berghain mix CD which is coming out this year. And the exclusive twelve inches that they put out with the mix, my tune is going to be on that with someone else, so I’m very happy with that.

What can we expect from you in the next year?

Well the two remix twelve inches are coming out a week after the CD. They will have remixes by Ben Klock, Redshape, Zomby and a new guy from Manchester called Illum Sphere. Then there should be another artist twelve inch as well and there should be a remix for a Latin band and I’m working on my second album already. I want to get that out for the summer of 2010 so I’m going to have to speed it up a lot if I’m going to get it done by then.

10. Patrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras, Catholic
[Macro] (buy)
Re-issues are already the perfect gift from record labels to collectors. They don’t appear on the horizon like new releases but sneak up unexpectedly from behind, pleasantly spinning the focus around for a moment. Like mortar, they put that elusive and essential brick firmly in place, or they fortify that worn and weary copy ensuring both the completeness and endurance of a collection. As a previously unreleased collaboration between Jorge Socarras and disco demigod Patrick Cowley, Macro’s impressive gift of Catholic in 2009 does so much more. Not only inspiring re-appreciation of one of disco’s legendary auteurs, it calls for a reassessment of what we know about Cowley, deepening our understanding of an already rich musical endowment. The surprising stylistic scope of Catholic only adds to its charm, demonstrating the underlying musical promiscuity of the late 70′s and early 80′s and allowing new lines to be draws in the lineage of electronic and dance music. It’s not often that something this new, unanticipated, and exciting comes up from the past, but when it does, you really appreciate the present, bow and all. (Andrew Clapper)

09. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
[Domino] (buy)
Merriweather Post Pavilion is undoubtedly this list’s most controversial entry, but what’s less certain is why it’s earned such notoriety. Too close to indie rock for some, sure; too rapturously embraced by indie music press/audiences, true, but hardly Animal Collective’s fault. Although there’s no accounting for taste, I’d aver the apprehension has much to do with jealously guarding the electronic realm from arriviste experimental rockers, even if they crafted one of the year’s most striking electronic albums that offers nothing to fear. The jaunty, hook-filled tunes leaping from Animal Collective’s latest LP are often the product of synths, sequencers, drum machines and voices, with guitar and bass licks providing texture instead of leading the way. But their gear choices are only means to a colorful, densely packed end: Ragged tones and twinkling loops enrich and balance tunes that skirt the borders of pop and experimental abstraction with apparent glee. They’ve created a deeply personal album whose sentiments resonate as strongly as its clever arrangements, inviting listeners into the comforting arms of “Also Frightened,” to consider their natural urges on “Guys Eyes” and artistic proclivities on “Taste,” to cheer up family and friends alongside “Brother Sport” and sing oneself hoarse to Recession-era anthem “My Girls” as the guys channel Frankie Knuckles. Taken together, Merriweather Post Pavilion is a complete package of dazzling sounds, excellent songwriting and personality to spare. In a year crammed with rock-oriented artists trying to incorporate electronics into their sound, Animal Collective have emerged as plugged in friends, not foes. (Steve Mizek)

08. Ben Klock, One [Ostgut Tonträger] (buy)
“Ain’t no happiness, ain’t no sadness” was the Elif Bicer-vocaled refrain to the catchiest moment on Ben Klock’s debut album, One. Bicer might as well have been describing the album, which went beyond simple black and white emotions with its many different shades of gray. If this makes One sound dully monochrome, then the description is misleading. Possibly the most varied full length to come out on Ostgut Ton thus far, it nonetheless pulled reduced techno, Chain Reaction dub, flecks of house, and a sprinkling of dubstep into a unified, distilled and purified whole. In a record so consistently excellent it’s tough to pick out highlights, but the relentless early morning kick of “Gloaming,” or the brutal organ stabs of “Grip” offer easiest access for the uninitiated. Eschewing such “obvious” feelings as happy or sad, One offered far more complex and enthralling sensations to be a good deal better than “OK.” (Peder Clark)

07. Redshape, The Dance Paradox [Delsin] (buy)
Right from the very first burst of jangling percussion and mysteriously icy, Amber-era Autechre inspired chords of “Seduce Me,” it was obvious the mysterious techno producer had successfully managed to translate the brooding sensibilities underpinning his deep techno EPs to the album format. However, there were two crucial differences between The Dance Paradox and Redshape’s back catalog. The first was that the producer worked with a drummer throughout the recording process, and flowing from this method, the album was more varied sounding than Redshape’s singles. While these traits are most obvious on “Rohrschach’s Game,” where drums tumble through a textured fog, bringing chaos to the textured ambience, the standout cuts sound more like a woozy combination of Redshape’s established sound. “Garage GT” unfolded to the sound of traffic noise and police sirens as the author laid down gloriously warm jazz keys, set to the ever present lumbering bass. “Dead Space Mix (Edit)” meanwhile, was an updated version of the B side from the first Present release, and saw Redshape go back to the bleep meets Detroit techno of Nexus 21, while “Man out of Time” was like a typical dance floor focused Redshape track dissected and re-imagined for home listening, its sprawling chords and rumbling bass flowing through a freeform prism. Despite this approach, there were other moments when Redshape reverted to type. “Bound (Part 1 & 2)” was like a successor to “Blood into Dust,” its buzzing bass line and crystalline synths building to a dramatic denouement, while “Globe” burnt brighter and went deeper than all the producer’s other brooding moments. If there’s one complaint about Paradox, it would have to be its brevity. At just eight tracks, it feels like Redshape was hitting his stride as it finished. Maybe it’s more to do with the fact that this writer would be happy to listen to the richness and depth of sound and prevailing mood, somewhere between miserabilism and euphoria, ad infinitum. (Richard Brophy)

06. Juju & Jordash, Juju & Jordash [Dekmantel] (buy)
Juju and Jordash are not your average dance producers. Accomplished guitar and keyboard players, respectively, the Israeli-by-way-of-Amsterdam duo defies expectation in origin and outcome. Their first widely released full-length presents their unique style as well as or better than their previous records have, permitting stomping dance anthems, like the mischievous single “Deep Blue Meanies,” to exist alongside intricate instrumental explorations like “Jugdish,” which sounds something like the Bill Evans trio on mescaline. Though that jazz influence is clear, from both their sound and their no-samples approach to production and performance, their cosmopolitan sound doesn’t stop there. Jamaican dub, Italian disco, American house, and German experimental rock also figure heavily into their work. Juju and Jordash have been bubbling under the surface of recognition for the past five years — earlier releases have appeared on Keith Worthy’s Aesthetic Audio, Reggie Dokes’ Psychostasia, and Jus-Ed’s Underground Quality — and with this remarkable LP, they are bursting through.
(Shuja Haider)

05. Bodycode, Immune [Spectral Sound] (buy)
After last year’s “Release,” we were primed for a meal-size helping of Alan Abrahams’ lush, sophisticated, abstracted vocal house. A well-sequenced selection of his dance-oriented new work would’ve done the trick. And we certainly got choice tracks — from “Hyperlight”‘s deep house debris to the burrowing reproach/plea of single “What Did You Say” to rattling anthem “Imitation Lover” — but Abraham did us one better, delivering an honest-to-god album that engages the length and concentration of the LP as house music seldom has. Immune‘s tracks drift into and echo off of one another, merged into a viscous and seemingly indivisible whole. Abrahams’ instantly recognizable compositional style and, yes, voice are crucial to this unity, but Immune‘s true bonding tissue is its pervading mood. The course of its human dramas already set, this is a music of introspection, reflection, regret, and melancholy. And somehow, Immune pronounces these feelings rhythmically, its poignance bound to the jack. Who knew that disappointment could move so seductively?
(Chris Burkhalter)

04. Martyn, Great Lengths [3024] (buy)
Some of the most talked about, ground-breaking and over-hyped records in 2009 all came from the dubstep camp. Martyn fit snuggly into the first two of these descriptives with his mind blowing Great Lengths album that marked out its own territory in the ever expanding dubstep universe. Any hype surrounding his debut full length though was duly earned; the Dutchman’s unique take on the narrowing divide between techno and dubstep was embodied with tough, embossed percussion, rarefied techno chords and heavy, rounded bass lines that never laid a foot wrong. While many artists now inhabit the neutral zone unoccupied by either dubstep or techno exclusively, few have managed to do so with an effortless grace as Martyn. Whether tooling with takes on deep house, chord heavy breakbeat or post-garage pressure, Martyn kept the balance between beauty and melancholy throughout the album’s entirety, adding to its appeal with a cohesiveness and digestibility often disregarded by electronic artists in album form. (Per Bojsen-Moller)

03. Shackleton, Three EPs [Perlon] (buy)
Even at Sam Shackleton’s most kinetic moments of dub-based munitions deployment, there has existed a fervent experimentalism in everything he has undertaken. Whether it has been the laissez faire approach to making his productions palpable club successes or a casual disregard for the very structures of what may deem a track to be called dubstep, it has been obvious from the first that inherent in Shackleton is to forge his own unique path through his music. His first proper artist album was no exception to his maverick style, giving us an aureate, densely layered work that doesn’t so much require repeated listening as demands it. For those familiar with Shackleton’s productions, Three EPs was no departure from anything he has done, but as a whole showed a much grander ambition. From the cohesive flow of the nine tracks to the locked grooves on the vinyl, Three EPs was been designed to be a listening experience and proved to be one that yielded further curiosities upon each listening. In its experimental regard it can be loosely likened to another of 2009′s stand-out releases, the Moritz von Oswald Trio’s Vertical Ascent. Though Three EPs may outwardly be more easily approachable, both are fashioned from recondite percussion programming and spend long periods of time teasing out central themes and ideas from studied, repeated rhythms. Shackleton’s album however is saturated with the deep thrum of bass patterns, the prevailing essence of dubstep that has stayed with him while he has gradually started erasing the lines between it and other genres. However this doesn’t equate to any of the tracks being suitable for club play, but then that is hardly the point here. Instead this is the result of a producer displaying the mastery of their unique sound and further setting themselves apart from their rivals, creating in the process an album that is timelessly classic. (Per Bojsen-Moller)

02. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent
[Honest Jon's Records] (buy)
Do you remember the first time you really heard techno? Not just let it drift passively through your ear canals, but heard it, felt it like you’d been waiting to feel it your whole life but are caught completely off-guard by it in the instant. I can remember my moment (or moments, rather: classics like Hawtin’s Decks, EFX & 909 and Luomo’s Vocalcity thumping on repeat in my sophomore year dormroom), and while I’m not sure I’ll ever plunge quite that deep again, the Moritz Von Oswald Trio’s Vertical Ascent takes me back to the excitement of elemental, expectation-defying sounds about as much as any record has since. Over just four ultra-extended deep grooves, Von Oswald, Max Loderbauer, and show-stealer Sasu Ripatti travel a veritable universe of alien, quasi-melodic landscapes: they give us abstract anthemics on “Pattern 1,” slasher movie moodiness on “Pattern 2,” gravity-defying tropicalia on “Pattern 3,” and the druggiest Rhythm & Sound side of all time on “Pattern 4.” It’s a record that doesn’t sound like techno so much as it fully embodies it in ways you never thought possible, reaffirming what got your brain racing and ass shaking in the first place. And nearly three decades since George Clinton and Kraftwerk met on that fateful elevator ride, it’s nice to know there are still a few stones left unturned. (Jordan Rothlein)

01. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure
[Soul People Music] (buy)
From Underground Quality, to Third Ear, to Uzuri, one of 2009′s resurgent aesthetics was stripped down, analog house — a sound no one pulled off better than Fred P., best known as Black Jazz Consortium. When Structure was released last March, hardly anyone had gotten over his seminal New Horizon EP, and the appearance of almost a dozen new tracks was virtually overwhelming. But while that EP focused on accessible, romantic house, Structure finds Fred P going much deeper and darker, experimenting with clunky rhythms, stark arrangements and odd time signatures. “New Horizon” may be his best song ever, but more austere tracks like “Tea-Pot Science,” “Something Old” and “I Want That” reveal how subtle and refined Fred’s technique really is. Using little more than perfectly constructed bass kicks, hand claps and a fistful of simple synth sounds, Structure outperformed every other album that came out this year. (Will Lynch)

++

Staff Lists:

Per Bojsen-Moller:

01. Martyn, Great Lengths [3024]
02. Shackleton, Three EPs [Perlon]
03. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
04. Ben Klock, One [Ostgut Tonträger]
05. Holger Zilske, Holz [Playhouse]
06. John Daly, Sea & Sky [Wave Music]
07. Intrusion, The Seduction of Silence [echospace [detroit]]
08. Linkwood, System [Prime Numbers]
09. V/A, 5 Years of Hyperdub [Hyperdub]
10. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure [Soul People Music]

Richard Brophy:

01. Redshape, The Dance Paradox [Delsin]
02. Legowelt, Vatos Locos [Crème Organization]
03. Traxx, Faith [Nation]
04. Demdike Stare, Symbiosis [Modern Love]
05. Bodycode, Immune [Spectral Sound]
06. Cio D’or, Die Faser [Prologue]
07. Patrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras, Catholic [Macro]
08. Ben Klock, One [Ostgut Tonträger]
09. Pendle Coven. Self Assessment [Modern Love]
10. Planetary Assault Systems. Temporary Suspension [Ostgut Tonträger]

Chris Burkhalter:

01. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure [Soul People Music]
02. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
03. SND, Atavism [Raster-Noton]
04. Broadcast and The Focus Group, …Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
[Warp Records]
05. Atom™, Liedgut [Raster-Noton]
06. 2562, Unbalance [Tectonic]
07. Bodycode, Immune [Spectral Sound]
08. Junior Boys, Begone Dull Care [Domino]
09. Tevo Howard, Dreamer’s Reason Café [Beautiful Granville Records]
10. Cio D’or, Die Faser [Prologue]

Andrew Clapper:

01. Juju & Jordash, Juju & Jordash [Dekmantel]
02. Patrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras, Catholic [Macro]
03. Linkwood, Systems [Prime Numbers]
04. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure [Soul People Music]
05. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
06. Dam-Fun, Toeachizown [Stones Throw Records]
07. Ben Klock, One [Ostgut Tonträger]
08. Bodycode, Immune [Spectral Sound]
09. Maayan Nidam, Nightlong [Power Shovel Audio]
10. Bottin, Horror Disco [Bear Funk]

Peder Clark:

01. Ben Klock, One [Ostgut Tonträger]
02. Patrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras, Catholic [Macro]
03. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure [Soul People Music]
04. The Whitest Boy Alive, Rules [Asound/Bubbles]
05. Bodycode, Immune [Spectral Sound]
06. Mountains, Choral [Thrill Jockey]
07. Andrés, II [Mahogani Music]
08. Planetary Assault Systems, Temporary Suspension [Ostgut Tonträger]
09. Redshape, The Dance Paradox [Delsin]
10. Christian Naujoks, Untitled [Dial]

Shuja Haider:

01. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
02. Juju & Jordash, Juju & Jordash [Dekmantel]
03. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure [Soul People Music]
04. Linkwood, Systems [Prime Numbers]
05. Martyn, Great Lengths [3024]
06. Bodycode, Immune [Spectral Sound]
07. Redshape, The Dance Paradox [Delsin]
08. Black Meteoric Star, Black Meteoric Star [DFA]
09. Ron Trent, Dance Classic [Prescription Classic Recordings]
10. Hieroglyphic Being, So Much Noise 2 B Heard [Mathematics Recordings]

Todd Hutlock:

01. Intrusion, The Seduction of Silence [echospace [detroit]]
02. Shackleton, Three EPs [Perlon]
03. Martyn, Great Lengths [3024]
04. Matias Aguayo, Ay Ay Ay [Kompakt]
05. Etienne Jaumet, Night Music [Versatile Records]
06. Lawrence, Until Then, Goodbye [Mule Electronic]
07. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
08. Redshape, The Dance Paradox [Delsin]
09. The Field, Yesterday And Today [Kompakt]
10. Brock Van Wey, White Clouds Drift On And On [echospace [detroit]]

Anton Kipfel:

01. Bodycode, Immune [Spectral Sound]
02. Shackleton, Three EPs [Perlon]
03. Martyn, Great Lengths [3024]
04. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion [Domino]
05. Lindstrom & Prins Thomas, II [Eskimo Recordings]
06. SND, Atavism [Raster-Noton]
07. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
08. 2562, Unbalance [Tectonic]
09. Patrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras, Catholic [Macro]
10. Redshape, The Dance Paradox [Delsin]

Kuri Kondrak:

01. Juju & Jordash, Juju & Jordash [Dekmantel]
02. Agore, Memories [4 lux]
03. 2562, Unbalance [Tectonic]
04. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure [Soul People Music]
05. FaltyDL, Love Is A Liability [Planet Mu]
06. Redshape, The Dance Paradox [Delsin]
07. Future Beat Alliance, Patience and Distance [EeevoNext]
08. Reagenz, Playtime [Workshop]
09. Linkwood, System [Prime Numbers]
10. Aybee, East Oakland Space Program [Deepblak]

Will Lynch:

01. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure [Soul People Music]
02. Reagenz, Playtime [Workshop]
03. Whitest Boy Alive, Rules [Asound/Bubbles]
04. Losoul, Care [Playhouse]
05. Vladislav Delay, Tummaa [Leaf]
06. To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie, Marlone [Kranky]
07. STL, Dub Techno Explorations [Something]
08. Kurt Vile, Childish Prodigy [Matador]
09. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
10. Juju & Jordash, Juju & Jordash [Dekmantel]

Chris Miller:

01. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
02. Shackleton, Three EPs [Perlon]
03. Reagenz, Playtime [Workshop]
04. Ben Klock, One [Ostgut Tonträger]
05. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavillion [Domino]
06. Martyn, Great Lengths [3024]
07. Cio D’or, Die Faser [Prologue]
08. Vladislav Delay, Tummaa [Leaf]
09. Redshape, The Dance Paradox [Delsin]
10. Falty DL, Love Is A Liability [Planet Mu]

Steve Mizek:

01. Shackleton, Three EPs [Perlon]
02. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure [Soul People Music]
03. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
04. Martyn, Great Lengths [3024]
05. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion [Domino]
06. Bodycode, Immune [Spectral Sound]
07. Redshape, The Dance Paradox [Delsin]
08. Juju & Jordash, Juju & Jordash [Dekmantel]
09. Trus’me, In the Red [Prime Numbers]
10. Planetary Assault Systems, Temporary Suspension [Ostgut Tonträger]

Jordan Rothlein:

01. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent [Honest Jon's Records]
02. Shackleton, Three EPs [Perlon]
03. Brock Van Wey, White Clouds Drift On And On [echospace [detroit]]
04. Martyn, Great Lengths [3024]
05. Atom™, Liedgut [Raster-Noton]
06. Stimming, Reflections [Diynamic Music]
07. Fever Ray, Fever Ray [Rabid]
08. Fuck Buttons, Tarot Sport [ATP]
09. Black Jazz Consortium, Structure [Soul People Music]
10. Juju & Jordash, Juju & Jordash [Dekmantel]

19. Floating Points, “Love Me Like This”
[R2 Records] (buy)
Cultural trends are often about reevaluating the past, and one of the healthiest musical trends of the past couple years has been a reconsideration of the synth-pop, boogie-funk, and electro of the 1980s. It should no longer be viable to consider reference to that decade automatically pejorative (“That’s so eighties!”), with evidence like Floating Points’ “Love Me Like This” — perhaps the most auspicious debut of the past year — to the contrary. A sensitive deconstruction and reconstruction of Real II Reel’s raunchy boogie jam of the same name, the track is dreamy, funky, and spacey all at once. Unlike the least distinguished edits flooding the market, this one includes a generous dose of Londoner Samuel Shepherd’s own active ingredients, with a mutating bass line and jazzy synth accents brilliantly altering the internal structure of the funky guitar and soulful refrain. This is not a canny hack job riding a great sample source to success; it announces the arrival of a major talent. (Shuja Haider)

18. Ben Klock, “Subzero” [Ostgut Tonträger] (buy)
2009 was a year largely devoid of really good anthems. Sure, “Silent State” was beloved by many; Michel Cleis’ “La Mezcla” found its way into an absurd number of DJs’ crates, and many rushed to declare their love for Wax’s “No. 20002-B.” But when it came to big, instantly recognizable club tunes, few captured the imagination as thoroughly as Ben Klock’s sensational “Subzero, balancing subtle melodies and warehouse ready percussion like a man on a wire. Its tight pacing and surprisingly lush sound design build a palpable tension that feels like you’re standing on a precipice, unsure of your next move. And when the mammoth kicks land and those scything effects carve up the stereo spectrum, even the most timid clubber will want to pump their fists like the Techno Viking. So while other tracks can rightly claim to be popular, few have the kind of anthemic potential “Subzero” emits in its first minute. (Steve Mizek)

17. Shake, “Indagoo” [Morphine Records] (buy)
If techno was bebop, Anthony “Shake” Shakir would be Thelonious Monk. Even his titles — try “Mood Music for the Moody” — show a trace of Monkish wit. Shake is not yet as widely recognized as the music’s Birdlike originator and Dizzily active popularizer, but the upcoming Frictionalism compilation gives his status as reclusive, idiosyncratic genius a due upgrade. That doesn’t mean, however, that Anthony Shakir is content to rest on his laurels — his Levitate Venice EP is proof Shake is back with a vengeance. “Indagoo” is the most astonishing of its four tracks; the crooked lope of its bass line, the whimsical hornlike interjections, the gentle boogie of its piano vamp adding up to a sum that could have emerged from no other brain than Shakir’s. Though Shake has often remarked that he doesn’t really dance, “Indagoo” shows how ably — and how uniquely — he can make the rest of us do it. (Shuja Haider)

16. Margaret Dygas, “Invisible Circles” [Perlon] (buy)
Following the quite abstract and also rather enjoyable “See You Around” for Non Standard Productions, many wondered where Margaret Dygas’ wide-eyed experimental sound would take us next. Her answer, splitting the difference between the prickly functionalism of her Contexterrior debut and the woozy esoterica wafting from her NSP 12″, arrived in a Perlon sleeve. The disorienting dirge “Invisible Circles” keeps DJs and dancers are kept on their toes with metallic rhythms meted in unusual patterns and pulse-quickening tone stabs. These alone could catch ears; but when heard amid the cacophony of knuckle-cracking snare bursts, gritty, disembodied voices bleeding into the mix and generous dollops of reverb, listeners are mentally transported to the scene of an occult sacrifice ceremony. It’s the kind of track you’d drop if you wanted to shake a dance floor from its whatever-fueled daze. Dygas has shown a propensity towards defying and exceeding expectations with each new release, and with the ferocious “Invisible Circles” she’s confirmed her most predictable trait is finding unforeseen, enjoyable ways to flex listeners’ heads. (Anton Kipfel)

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[Sandwell District]

Sandwell District have been making acerbic waves in the techno scene for a couple of years now, and in 2009 it’s common knowledge that if you want proper techno you’d best head to Sandwell. Given that every one of this year’s SD releases, aside from Silent Servant’s fantastic “Negative Fascinations,” has been technically a remix, the choice to abandon the usual procession of catalog numbers in favor of the new “SDRM” code for this new 12″ of remixes is a surprise. Regardless, Berghain favorites Ben Klock and Norman Nodge are on deck to reshape Function’s massive “Disaffected” while anonymous Sandwell insider, CH-Signal Laboratories lends their hands to continue the Variance remix project from earlier this year.

After getting the remix treatment from Function and Regis in the form of their excellent “Subzero” mix, Ben Klock returns the favor by toning down the intense oscillating bass tones of the original “Disaffected” and establishing a more languid pulse. It’s a bit pedestrian as far as Klock is concerned, lacking some of the personality and “Klockisms” that really make his work stand out from the rest, but there is still a lot there and it makes for a great techno track. Norman Nodge also takes on “Disaffected” and keeps things rather restrained. A flurry of hi-hats and rimshots, a steady kick, and just a small fragment of the original’s bass line make up the only sounds here, but Nodge’s know-how keep it from ever becoming tedious. He takes no prisoners with his version and turns out the most effective mix in the package, staying true to the original’s attitude while being drenched in Nodge’s personality.

Finally, CH-Signal Laboratories take on “Variance”, which is a good enough version, although at this point there doesn’t seem to be much more to mine in “Variance.” Assuming that Function’s version was the original, the bleeping tones, delayed bass sounds, and much of the snappy percussion are kept it in place, but while it’s a solid mix and certainly serviceable on the floor one wishes the fourth “Variance” mix would be more like Marcel Dettmann’s: reshaping the entire tune from the ground up. While it’s unfortunately the least essential Sandwell District 12″ to be released this year, this is a record most labels would be itching to put out, and for that it deserves your attention.