Collection: Techno/Minimal/Tech-House

Jared Wilson

Fabio Monesi

Dj Deeon

Borrowed CS

Interstellar Funk

Jamie XX

Lorenz Audio

Club Skam

Wax

Johnny Funk

When it comes to hybrid blends of intoxicating world music sounds and contemporary dancefloor rhythms, few producers are quite as accomplished as Nicola Cruz. He's at it again on "Hybridism", the Equador-based Frenchman's first EP for Multi-Culti for almost three years. Opener "Aima" sets the tone, with Cruz wrapping lilting synth lines, weirdo electronics and chanted vocals around a bubbling electronic groove, while "Naeku" makes the most of echo-laden drums, what sounds like an African children's choir and faintly foreboding acid lines. "Drom Tradisie" is an exercise in trippy sounds and layered percussion, "Third Eye Dub" is a darker and moodier slab of techno-exotica and "Kawe's Dream" is a blissful blast of clarinet-sporting musical positivity.

After five years of on-off collaborations and side projects, Aaron 'FIT' Siegel has finally got round to making a new solo record. It's rather good, with startling A-side "Exist On" delivering a brilliant blend of breakbeat-driven turn of the '90s grooves, chunky bass, ultra-dreamy chords and the kind of bleeping top-end melodies more readily associated with the early releases of Warp Records. Title track "Formula" moves even further towards bleep techno territory via deep space chords, thumping techno beats, Kraftwerkian lead lines and the kind of distorted analogue bass found on LIES releases, while "Wayne County Stomp" sounds like a mutated, mind-altering cover of Steve Poindexter's "Computer Madness".

Four highly requested remixes of Jacques Greenes sophomore Dawn Chorus album by Fort Romeau, Big Miz, Ciel and Martyn Bootyspoon. Last years “Dawn Chorus” album showed Jacques Greene outgrowing the limitations of the tempo-defined dance genres he rose to notoriety within. And while his own music grew in scope, Dawn Chorus became his most collaborative work: courting friends and instrumentalists to lend their work to the album. For that reason, Dawn Chorus feels so much richer than his prior, solitary bedroom production and spoke to Greene’s competence as a curator. Inviting friends to contribute original remixes to the Deluxe Edition of the album which speaks to his ability for curation in a whole other sense: building on the album with club primetime house and techno, afterparty warehouse versions from Greene’s friends and family.

Over a decade after the first LiveJam collaboration surfaced - on a strictly vinyl-only basis - an entire cosmos of interconnected artists, labels and releases have spawned off its mystery - a perpetual praising of the shadows that is less and less present within the underground. At its core, it instilled an ethos and a clear aesthetic both for the label’s regulars, and for the wider house and techno spectrum as a measure of quality. The initial collective, led and curated by founders EMG and John Swing, gave rise, together with the Analogue Cops, to the tirelessly anonymous APPOINTMENT project - an improvisational, techno-minded session - and the SPS moniker that includes talented producer Battista, with both sets of crews making a return after a long break from the label. Ten years later and the cooperative expands, finding mutual respect and admiration among two heavyweights of the UK house and techno ecosystem - house maestro, Mr G, for the former, and British techno luminary, Ben Sims, for the latter. Even so, this remains consciously limited to vinyl, and while they now have official support from two of dance music’s legends, it’s been earned through a dogged pursuit of Livejam’s founding principles. Simply, a physical production ethos from conception through to performance.

As you'd expect from someone as experienced as DJ Qu, this two track, single-sided salvo manages to strike just the right balance between dancefloor weight, drive, and the kind of mind-altering weirdness that sounds so good in the early hours of the morning. This is particularly evident on hazy and heady opener "A Lucid", where off-key electric piano notes, weirdo noises, echoing percussion hits and mangled vocal snippets ride a wonky, bass-heavy techno groove. "Tape" is a little less brain melting and a touch deeper, but still makes use of wiggly acid lines, spacey stabs and reasonably robust beats. Like the A-side, it sounds like it is probably best enjoyed in a very dark room at five in the morning.