- French label Syncrophone has been behind some stellar left-field house and techno over the past few years. Now the crew behind it has started For Those Who Know, a subsidiary that should burrow even further down the rabbit hole. The first EP comes from unknown quantity 1977, who crafts wafer-thin techno reinforced with a dub backbone—music that might have been equally comfortable on Perlon or Playhouse in the early '00s.
With its dry and trebly soundstage, "Dab Dis" sounds vacuum sealed. It's built on kick drums that have almost zero low-end impact and a single throbbing chord whose stiffness sits somewhere between Basic Channel and Livity Sound. The brief "Lud" shows off more of 1977's peculiar sound design, shrouding Clicks & Cuts-style glitches and hisses in rich, chamber-esque acoustics. The two tracks on the flip feel retro, with a hint of vintage Jan Jelinek in them—a high compliment to pay any young producer. "Gersen," a staticky collection of loops held together by one metronomic click, bears the most resemblance, while "Norman" has a firmer foundation, with drums that swing gently back and forth, breaking up the feel of the other three cuts. For a label that promises outright weirdness, 1977's debut goes down surprisingly easy.
TracklistA1 Dab Dis
A2 Lud
B1 Gersen
B2 Norman