- Mike Dehnert seems to enjoy releasing albums. He's put out five long-players since 2007, ranging from the driving, chords-driven techno of Maximal, through to the driving, chords-driven techno of Part 2. He also seems to enjoy functionality. Those albums totalled 61 digital-only tracks, each and every one of them aimed directly at the dance floor. It should go without saying then that Dehnert doesn't produce albums in the traditional sense of the term. "Collections for DJs" might be a more accurate descriptor.
Relatively speaking, though, Framework should be considered his most experimental and diverse album to date, in that it features an intro, an outro and a track with barely any kick drum. These non-club orientated passages work well enough. "Kontextfrei" in particular benefits greatly from the simple introduction of some strings to swarm around its sub-aquatic bass and raspy vocal sample. But if you're picking up this release it'll likely be for its dance floor potential. And in that regard Framework has plenty. "Teilfolge" is six minutes of classy Detroit house; "Framework" gets as rank as anything Dettmann has committed to disc; while "Palindrom" could give some of Croydon's finest a run for their money in terms of LFO abuse. In fact, DJs oscillating between house and techno could potentially fall back on at least seven of these 11 tracks. Each are based, to differing degrees, upon the modulation of synth chords, with tonal and textural variation being derived from executing a similar trick in myriad different ways. Drums, in the main, are rudimentary but swung to instil a core sense of funkiness.
Despite being a regular at both Berlin techno institutions—Berghain and Tresor—Dehnert's vision of the genre never feels too weighted down by the type of po-faced purism his contemporises are often wedded to. Yes, at times in the past his range has seemed limited—and the same goes for Fachwerk, the imprint he runs alongside Roman Lindau and Sascha Rydell—but Dehnert very clearly knows where his and his label's strengths lie and continually plays to them. Framework's non-dance floor manoeuvres may not embellish it enough to fit the "rounded full-length" tag, but in terms of Dehnert's personal development these moments mixed with his continually excellent dance floor material renew interest in an artist who should be thought of among techno's leading exponents.
Tracklist 01. Intro
02. Infix
03. Framework
04. Palindrom
05. Quattro
06. Klartext
07. Teilfolge
08. Inversion
09. Kontextfrei
10. Beatmatching
11. Outro