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techno

DJ Senz’r * For Real (12″ 200? aimpoint records)

Hm, is DJ Senz’r mr. Savelkoul of A Challenge Of Honour? Either or not, this is something completely different: drum’n’bass. Quite typical, not too original and not too hard. The two tracks sound too average and predictable to me. Not that this is a completely boring 12″, but even though I have not that much d’n’b, some variation might have been good.

Dom + Roland * Industry (cd 2000 moving shadow)

I have known D+R from various compilation contributions and remixes and their drum & bass can be pretty damn rough. On this album this is hardly the case though, only at a few moments.
I find it good to hear -though- that this is really an album and not just a collection of tracks that have previously been released on floorfilling vinyls. The tracks are spun together with ambient-like interludes and an atmosphere is build throughout the cd.
Still I am not as impressed by a Dom + Roland cd as I hoped.

Doormouse * Broken (cd 2002 planet-mu records)

Sharing labels with the brilliant Hellfish & Producer is no guarantee for geniocity. Doormouse managed to take the style of Hellfish a step further. There are much more crazy rhythms and beats, much more crazy samples, much more noisy elements. The result is… too much! Almost nowhere there is a regular beat, no real “tekno” and Doormouse is at times closer to digicore than tekno in general. At a few times great, but most of the times totally overdone.

Ec8or * s/t (cd 1995 digital hardcore recordings)

Well THIS is digital hardcore! Extreme anarchistic digital punk with a high level of extremety and a nice sick twist of originality. I definately think that this duo is the most interesting DHR act and this debut cd is a classic. Better than their following albums (see below). Try to get this one if you want real digital hardcore.

Ec8or * The One And Only High And Low (cd 2000 digital hardcore recordings)

However I listen quite a bit to some digital hardcore and other hardcore techno artists once in a while, this is the first review in this vein. This is mostly caused by the fact that I buy older material which I find not really suitable to review. This one is also a bit older, but not too old.
I also have the nameless debut cd of this German electronic punk duo which is from 1995. This cd contains some violent techno and is really enjoyable. “The One And Only…” is the next that I hear from them, so I miss five years of evolution, but this ‘new’ disc is by far not as impressive as the debut. Actually the music became quite tranquil! There are still distorted beats and vocals, but everything became slower, the ‘terror beats’ disappeared and there is more of a punk attitude over the music.
Sadly enough this is not the first time that I had to conclude that digital hardcore of 5, 6 years ago sounded a lot better and more extreme.

Fennesz * Endless Summer (cd 2001 touch)

I don’t think I had ever heard of Christian Fennesz before I saw this cd. When I put it on, it soon became clear that this is one of the most abstract “electronica” act that I have ever heard. In the review of Funckarma’s “Parts” (see below) I wrote that they have hardly definable rhythms, but I can asure you that Funckarma sounds like disco in comparison to Fennesz! “Endless Summer” contains the strangest and abstract soundscapes with completely cut-up sounds, sometimes something that I can only call “rhythm” by lack of a better word and not really any melody even. Only for the advanced listeners I guess.

Funckarma * Parts (cd 2000 dub)

It seems that abstract techno is slowly becoming more and more popular. Aphex Twin has hits on MTV and Funckarma won some kind of popprice. They seem to be the talk of the day, this project. When I rented “Parts” at the cd-rental shop, there were only two more people in the shop who were both ‘fans’.
Anyway, what you will hear when playing “Parts” is slow and rather tranquil, but very abstract techno with hardly a definable rhythm, cut-up beats and strange sounds with here and there a clear tone or some melody. Sometimes I get the idea of listening to someone playing a computer game, so little structure is there to be heard.
To speak for myself, I prefer some energy and structure. For others I can say that when you are not irritated by experiments of Aphex Twin or Speedy J, you may want to listen to this cd some time as well.

Funckarma * Solid State (cd 2001 dub)

Second cd of the Dutch brothers Funcken. “Solid State” sounds pretty much like “Parts” (see above), pretty melodious, fairly accessible (when you get used to the style of music), but with some more abstract tracks than previously. I don’t think this is the best project in the genre and I still prefer more energy and structure, but listening to Funckarma you get an idea of what is going on with techno music these days. But maybe you want to listen to the recently released dub compilation first.

Funk D’Void * Dos (cd 2000 soma recordings ltd)

Also in cd-shops where they have this kind of music, Funk D’Void can be found in between Funckarma and Funkstörung, just as here (when I write this at least). However again the word “funk” can be found in the bandname, Funk D’Void has little to do with the other two acts and the reason that they are filed under the same subsubsubsection “techno” is because also “Dos” can’t be easily classified.
“Dos” opens quite ‘shocking’ in my ears. This is more top40-like trance-house than anything at least a little abstract. Complete with easy melodies and rhythms and vocal(sample)s. As the cd continues it gets a little more serious and one or two nice tracks can be heard. For the largest part this cd really stinks in my opinion.

Funkstörung * Additional Productions (cd 2000 !k7)

Funkstörung is another techno act making what I call “abstract techno” like Funckarma (see above). The booklet is so vague that I’m not sure about the cd-title, label name or release year, but above you can see what I made of it.
On this cd Funkstörung cooperated with different artists being Björk, DJ Craze, the Wu-Tang Clan and S’Apex resulting is fairly accessible but at times totally insane and unstructured techno. Here and there the music sounds quite ‘hiphopish’, but at other times Funkstöring ignore all laws of logic and these are actually the best tracks from this album. I expect that an album of Funkstörung alone will only contain ‘technonense’. I’ll let you know when I find such an album.