- Heavy-duty and occasionally majestic hard techno hybrids.
- It's easy to associate Tommy Four Seven and his 47 label with hard-as-nails techno, but there's more than that when you peer beneath the surface. 47039, the label founder's first release on his own imprint in six years, is a case in point. Only one of its tracks, "Cycles," is even four-to-the-floor, and it's full of strange, rustling textures. The decaying melodies shrouded in the background could have come from The Caretaker's legendary ballroom LP An Empty Bliss Beyond This World. The same timeworn melancholy synths appear on the satisfyingly clacky techno of "Aerial." It's touches like these that transform Tommy Four Seven's techno into something more ornate than brutal.
The A-side is even less conventional. "Ixian" features a hard-to-parse broken rhythm, coiled tight and occasionally lashing out like minimal drum & bass. Its ambient passages match the tension of peak-era techstep without that genre's aggressive midrange. You can hear the same drum & bass influence at work on the majestic "Sworn," whose swinging rhythm slams down between thrusting bass notes like a game of whack-a-mole. Hard and steely on the exterior but surprisingly intricate underneath, 47039 is the latest in a series of records and mixes that showcase the adventurous side of today's ostensibly tough techno scene.
Tracklist01. Sworn
02. Ixian
03. Cycles
04. Aerial