Don’t Pass (on) the Mike

After a month or two where everything seemed to slow down and I genuinely began to wonder whether 2009 was going to be see the implosion of not just electronic music but society in general, there has been a wealth of great new techno music in the past month. Apart from new releases on Sandwell District, Delsin and Offkey Industries as well as new EPs from Peter Van Hoesen, Luke Slater, O/V/R and Legowelt (to me, techno music in the broadest sense of the term, others may disagree), Berlin producer Mike Dehnert has an excellent new EP out on his own Fachwerk label. In my ignorance, I only acquired my first Dehnert EP last year (Fachwerk has been on the go since 2007) and ‘Freiraum’ was like a breath of fresh air, featuring raw rhythms, howling analogue riffs and, on ‘Black Smoke’, sleazy vocals underpinned by grainy 303s. So if ‘Freiraum’ felt like Dehnert had captured and updated the spirit and sound aesthetic of 90s Tresor, his new EP, ‘Umluft’ sees him deliver a hard-edged take on Basic Channel dub techno. Instead of languishing in echo chamber-fuelled sloth however, ‘One’ and ‘Two’, are driving, repetitive chord-driven dance floor tracks – or, to describe them in a more succinct Hardwax fashion - TIP! For a taster of Dehnert in action, head over to the Mnmlssg blog….