- Manchester's Modern Love label exemplifies the British approach to a certain breed of straight-up techno. Fiercely (and often thrillingly) functional with a slight purist streak, its releases are as severe and bracing as northern weather. Sometimes all that's missing is just a little variation, some chinks of sunlight in the rigorously unyielding 4/4 grids.
Miles Whittaker is a member of Modern Love regulars Pendle Coven, and his recent releases as MLZ have caught the ear with their take on Basic Channel derived dub techno. Instead of the radiant reverb of the BC sound, tracks like MLZ's recent "Crossed Swords" restrict echoes along unending linear channels, with no sign of light at the end of the tunnel. "NewAnalogueCentury" exemplifies that approach. The combination of seriously crafted bass weight and tension-without-release becomes borderline blissful after a time, yet you yearn for at least some kind of melodic or percussive tangent to break up all these right angles.
"OneState" takes a different strategy, relying on expert sub-bass sculpting which jumps right out of the speakers. Like Andy Stott, another Modern Love regular, you simply can't fault the craftsmanship—bass like this really is in your face, coursing through the cheek bones in fact. Yet the track's sheer rigidity, anathema to what dub techno can and should strive for, for this listener at least, gives it a weirdly fossilized character.
TracklistA NewAnalogueCentury
B OneState