LWE’s seventh Talking Shopcast, mixed by Szare, was a diverse blend of techno with a heavy helping of their own as-yet-unreleased material. Be sure to add it to your collection before it’s archived this Friday, January 6th.
frozen border
Frozen Border, Frozen Border 06
September 14, 2010 – 9:01 AM
Devoid of the offbeat catchiness of previous editions, Frozen Border 06 is largely a package of tools with its own appeal that’s easier to appreciate with repeated spins.
Talking Shopcast with Frozen Border/Horizontal Ground
May 17, 2010 – 12:01 AM
Eschewing personality in favor of strict quality control has helped both Frozen Border and its more varied sibling Horizontal Ground stand out among swarms of white label imprints. Their owner, Jeff, was relatively guarded in his answers but shed a bit more light on one of contemporary techno’s darker corners. He was also generous enough to send us a top notch live set by Horizontal Ground artist 19.26.1.18.5 (aka Szare), which speaks just as loudly as Jeff’s carefully chosen words.
Frozen Border, Frozen Border 04
January 4, 2010 – 11:01 PM
As its sub-label, Horizontal Ground, is quickly defining its own brand of stripped back, DBX-style techno, Frozen Border continues on its own trajectory north, getting colder and more restrained with each release. While its counterpart seems to have developed a coded number system to “identify” the artist behind each release, no such identifications are available for Frozen Border, and thus each release can only be contextualized in terms of previous installments. Whereas Volume 3 seemed like the summit point towards which the first two were headed, the fourth issue in the Frozen Border series diverges from its predecessors in sound but not in temperature.
Horizontal Ground, Horizontal Ground 02
October 22, 2009 – 10:01 PM
Horizontal Ground, the companion label to Frozen Border, which itself has been responsible for three quick bursts of fearless techno, is now up to its second release of tracky tool time techno, the latest edition being even more bare and desolate than the first. Its incognito producer will keep the guessing game going and while some may argue that the anonymity of the minimal info tactic is geared toward building hype, the reality is that it manufactures a lot more focus on the music itself.
Frozen Border, Frozen Border 03
August 12, 2009 – 10:01 AM
Amid the current explosion of stamped white labels, Frozen Border stand apart for being among the truly mysterious. What do we know about them? Frozen Border is a record label and each 12″ is done by a different producer; aside from that, nothing. Their preference for anonymity and austere packaging hark back to the days of 90s techno, and it should come as little surprise the music does as well. Rather than rehashing the past, however, Frozen Border records leap from their 90’s reference points into the contemporary techno scene, resulting in fresh and forward-thinking productions.