Fuck me, for some reason I thought this was a Holger Czukay record. Instead it’s this Swedish guy practicing with his sweet new computer but on my time, shitting out three minimal trance cuts (i.e. short on ideas, zero build) of the same flimsy loops: a quote spooky whatever “bells in the water” riff, a faceless kick, and some stuttering percussion. A1 (”Whitest”) to A2 (”Whiter”) to B1 (”White”), Can changes up sub-genre dressing but keeps that ass bell loop, all to increasingly bad effect. The electro-housed A1 gets by because it sounds like a Bpitch demo, but A2 couldn’t even cut it on a Spectral comp, and B1 desperately wants to be acid-house but forgets the mindmelting squelch. Buy this record only if you have a comically large coffee mug and happen to need a coaster.

Precinct / PREC 014
[Listen]
[Nick Sylvester]

Plangent three-track EP on the somewhat puzzling Kompakt sublabel K2. Whatever the K2 raison d’etre might be, the Rice Twins are filling a much needed role with this lush soundtrack to a night of summer city driving with the windows down and a loved one by your side. “For Dan” evokes a wistful, romantic tone; “Rome” gets the blood racing a bit quicker as we merge onto the freeway, and the slightly wacky / nervous “Poppers” plays as you arrive at the club and surreptitiously smoke a joint in the parking lot.

K2 / K2/16
[Listen]
[Mallory O’Donnell]

Mobilee take a more proggy melodic direction, again, with this nice track from Britain’s Sleeper Thief. Produced by the increasingly prolific Audiofly/Rekleiner crew, both sides are deep melodic electronic house music proving that minimal labels don’t always have to be minimal. “Chasing Rainbow” is a bumping set starter, while “Full of You” is more peaking. Perhaps less jawdropping than you’d expect from Mobilee, but every great label needs these fire stoking releases, plus this is still far more interesting than the vast majority of British produced dance music, in whatever sense it can be called that.

Mobilee / mobilee014
[Listen]
[Ronan Fitzgerald]

There’s nothing trendy about this trance, as Gus Gus go all “Energy 52” on us. The melody is hypnotic, and euphoria abounds. The great thing about this record is that, unlike the slew of electrohouse producers and funky house refugees who have finally realized that trance is back, Gus Gus have followed the pop-trance template to the letter. In doing this they’ve come up with a record that doesn’t sound like new-trance, but rather exactly like the greatest and most celebrated moments of the genre. There’s no need for anyone to explain or apologize. “Mallflowers” is trance, pure and simple. It is also a majestic and wonderful piece of dance music.

Pineapple / PINE002
[Listen]
[Ronan Fitzgerald]

Is the majestic “Some Polyphony” this summer’s “Mandarine Girl”? Perhaps a more fitting tag would be this month’s “In White Rooms.” Nonetheless it’s yet another massive Border Community record, after the excellent, but anonymous “Big City/Dark Water” 12” which hit the water without a ripple. You should know the drill by now, you’re going to get the tight suction noises where the beats should be, the trance “Pink Panther” bassline, and the huge melancholy synth washes. Minimal and Mixmag have never made more sense together!

Border Community / 12BC
[Listen]
[Ronan Fitzgerald]

Why Somfay settled on this clipped, tinny 33-at-45rpm groove for the a-side is beyond me, but eventually the track finds a sellable drone and a lovelorn chord progression worthy of its title, “Tonight’s Frail Desire.” The brutal distortion and constant brick-a-bracking will keep “Desire” off most floors, but anybody hankering for Farmers Manual dance remixes will have a joyous trail of shit down his legs. Somfay’s really economical the way he creates depth, hiding snare clicks behind static then suddenly switching up their places and turning the static into the track’s anthem—not many elements, but the illusion of more is there. The end of “Desire” gets needlessly glitchy, but when this carries over to the b-side “Shivering Midnight Frost Laced Their Lips,” we’re in much prettier territory. Think Mum’s Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is OK’s sputtering melancholy set to a steady four. Kid bangers, I worry, will hear Somfay’s big franco-filter metal hook here and find a spot for “Shivering Midnight” between the latest Justice abortions, but I’m hoping that’s what happens too.

Budenzauber / buza007
[Listen]
[Nick Sylvester]

Three years ago I remember when everybody over at Traum was making tracks like this one’s topside: bleary-eyed long tones, early morning fog, really effete, really erotic, and then some big-dick kick violates it and systematizes it. Even better here. “Like You” gives up on minimal quickly and switches up to a big bright pop progression and a huge vocal hook not unlike “Lovefood” and “De Papel.” I always thought they were the same song and now I know they are, because “Like You” does the same bizarre “techno pop that makes you think!” lyrical nonsense: “I just want to be like you / I don’t care what people say / I just want to be myself / I am was you…” sings Boratto’s chanteuse, before going through some kinda-awesome vocal garble that, I guess, is performative, turning into the other person, etc.. In other words: fantastic. As for the Supermayer remix on the ass, don’t bother, unless you like blueballed beats, bells and whistles, or people who say “literally, bells and whistles.”

Kompakt Pop / KOM POP 10
[Nick Sylvester]

While the cut-up method has left literature snacking with newspaper forks, its most unnerving use in music has been chugged straight from the word blender. Letting Todd Edwards turn the shape of a speech bubble into a tornado and Scott Herren (in his Prefuse 73 guise) make dada into a glitched-hopped phrase, rapid-fire edits only achieve the startling otherness they deserve with speech. But rarely have phonemes sounded as comforting as with The Field’s newest EP, Sun & Ice. With “Over the Ice” Axel Willner (The Field) uses phrases as exfoliates. “Istedgade” sounds like the distant waves of a euro-dance hit before locking into a pleasure-principle loop-hook. The song’s blurry phrase repeats and reveals a slow ebb and flow that never says the same thing twice. And while the strummed guitars bear a resemblance to Superpitcher’s moody epics, Willner sheds the Rhein’s cloudy days for Stockholm’s lucid nights. Although the demo spilled onto the internet a while back, the title track hasn’t aged second—the song is swoon-worthy and provides the perfect backdrop to a packed lunch of cut-ups. Highly Recommended.

Kompakt / KOM137
[Nate De Young]

Border Community’s latest 12” offerings from Fairmont and, now, Lazy Fat People seem to be veering closer to the ambient side of the spectrum, allowing tracks to glide far longer than shoulda-been three minute running times to near-interminable six- and seven-minute bores. So you might say, if you only heard the A-side of Lazy Fat People’s debut entry into the label’s catalogue. But then comes the spellbinding “Dark Water,” which has received play in all corners of the techno world (including even John Digweed’s KISS FM show). That track never quite reaches the heights of Nathan Fake’s world-beating “The Sky Was Pink,” but the molasses-stretched static, pound-turns-into-plod house beat, and Knife-esque congo melody-drums turn into a whole ‘nother beast entirely, with the Sleeparchive-esque sonar meltdown providing the cherry on top. The Community does it again.

Border Community / 11BC
[Listen]
[Todd Burns]

I may very well be the only electronic music fan or DJ in the world that doesn’t think the Kompakt label wakes up every morning, fixes some coffee, and then shits solid gold, but so be it. Not to say this latest release from Michael Mayer’s uber-hip imprint is bad, and certainly not to imply that they haven’t put out their share of straight-up bombs, but I’ve heard this tired shuffle-house groove way too much and I’ll doubtless repeat that experience countless times before I’ve gone the way of trip-hop and Goldie. If I was dancing and either one of these personality-less tracks came on, it’d be a perfect time to go pee or get a beer. If I was sitting in my living room I’d just tap on that handy right arrow key. Oh, look, some disco claps come in near the three-and-a-half minute mark. Yawn. It’s called quality control, folks. Look it up.

Kompakt Extra / 034
[Mallory O’Donnell]