Collection: Techno

A hard to find sci-fi Detroit techno classic - it's featured everywhere from Marcel Dettmann to Zip's SW sets.- gets a timely reissue complete with a new, super solid Delano Smith remix. It's hard not to love the original in all its futuristic glory, led by a sturdy four-to-the-floor pummelling but boasting a throbbing neo-disco bassline - imagine a lost Gorgio Moroder classic being remade by Jeff Mills in PurposeMaker mode. But the Delano Smith remix updates it for modern palates, ironically by delving back even further, to the early 70s model Kraftwerk from whom he borrows some very austere but classy synth sounds and a touch of electro syncopation. Take your pick according to mood, they both do the job admirably.

Savor Music is fast approaching its quarter century but just ahead of that milestone comes another timeless EP from Alexis Cabrera. Everything from Chicago jack to Detroit soul is referenced in these well-crafted and club-ready cuts, starting with the cosmic cruise that is 'Funkhouser'. 'The Next Tomorrow' throws it back to the 80s in its bright synth chords and 'Guitars On The 5th Cloud' sinks into a nice deep and heady mood with its melancholic bassline and skittish synth-guitar sequences panning about the mix over a soft acid gurgle. 'Don't Give Yourself Away' brings a touch of silky electro rhythm though a menacing bassline keeps things firmly rooted on the floor.

For Erika's second album Anevite Void, she explores her live process as it permeates everything she does, including documenting the process of life in the elaborate sci fi mythology she created. Erika began performing live in Ectomorph in 1997 when she was gifted a TR-606 by BMG and asked to join the group. This grew to her building her own studio, performing solo as Erika, collaborating with people like Jay Ahern and Noncompliant, and performing as a member of Circle of Live. Anevite Void finds Erika organically writing songs for her live shows, allowing them to take shape through performance, and later recording them in the studio, making this the first album she has entirely written and produced on her own. Mixed by long time collaborator BMG, she finds this record as the launching point for a new process; conceptually, it was inspired by "the irregular life cycles created by three suns circling over a planetary organism that presents two major biomes: rocky crystalline desert, and deep layered forest, each of which exists above and/or below ground, depending on what phase the suns are in."

Moroccan production wizard Kosh returns to Casa Voyager for a rather impressive new four-tracker, 'Get It Done', which does exactly that and then some. Straddling as many genres as to remain somewhat unpigeonholeable, we launch into the full-bodied breaksy dubstep opener that is 'Hurry Up' before landing on 4x4 rave turf with 'Break It Until You Make It'; both tracks are liberal with their sample choppage and fidgets. The titular B-sider introduces an infectious chord swing and spit-snare, while the closing 'Despair' lets us in on the darker side of Kosh's inner world, as we careen through the acid-pad-filled veins of the beast.

Italian producer Jacopo Latini dropped a classy slice of techy trance on Berlin label Mood Waves last year, marking his debut proper and heralding a new talent in the thriving modern trance scene. Now he's following up on the promise of that release with this EP for Altered Circuits, which leads in with the sublime restraint of 'Motherboard', an elegant and mysterious take on the genre. 'High Voltage' pivots on a warm, analogue-sounding bassline and straight-up tech house drums, but there's space for some blissfully harmonious arps which give that trance feeling in an instant. 'It Comes In The Morning' has a slightly techier demeanour to its synth lines, and 'Dual Effect' takes things more introspective, but at all times the emotional content is the driving force behind these outstanding club tracks.

Not in fact the work of a studio duo, Promising/Youngster is in fact the chosen name of electro investigator Diego Cadierno. Cadierno has found a supportive home in Analogical Force, who he returns to with this finally constructed EP of needlepoint machine funk spread across four tracks. There's an electronica slant to his music, not least on the likes of 'Frozen' with its fragile melodic threads and crispy, introspective beats. But 'Amen' and 'Highway' also feature plenty of slap to get a dancefloor moving, if that's what you require from your fresh electro grabs.