- Munich's Prologue Recordings label has become one of the most understatedly refined disseminators of a strain of techno that's growing more popular seemingly by the minute. The recent Cio D'or Resident Advisor podcast is an excellent mascot for this kinda-sorta-movement, concerned as much with bewitching sound design as anything else.
Long enamored with the darker, more surrealist end of techno, tracks on Prologue tend to be sparse and minimal (the good kind). With spooky and tense atmospheres that stretch out and unfold over ten minutes, each track is a journey in itself. On his second release for the label, Light Echo, Japanese producer Iori dabbles in the more ambient end of Prologue's imagined stylebook. "Spiral" is almost like a characteristic Prologue take on Aphex Twin's most comforting early compositions: think Donato Dozzy stuck inside of Selected Ambient Works 85-92. The decaying ambient wash gives way to under-the-surface tribal thrumming, which continues unabated through the several layers of dry ice haze and clouds of intoxicating detritus that floats by during the track's gorgeous ten minutes.
"Time Hole" probes darker realities, it central riff grinding on its own axis with little variation outside of the silvery sparks that shoot out of unseen corners. However, it's the title track that hews closest to Iori's greatest talent--check his "Spaciotemporal" white label on Phonica for another fine example--that is, packing this vast ambient expanse of dread, tension and sensuality into sharply-focused beats. On "Light Echo," percussive synths vibrate internally, their invisible but palpable motion intensifying into a concentrated sheet of simultaneous unnatural movements, the frantic shaking like planetary orbits forced into tiny straight lines. If Iori's got the power to move heavenly bodies, imagine what these tracks could to do a dance floor.
Tracklist 01. Time Hole
02. Spiral
03. Light Echo