- Minimal, as a genre, might be over, but brain-curdling techno lives on. In fact, assuming you haven't had your head suck up your backside for the past twelve months, you'll have noticed a dizzying upsurge in the stuff. Take this: James Ruskin's second release of the year, and—dubious genre-tags aside—a true headfuck of a record if ever there was one.
The A-side sees Ruskin draft in fellow Brit-tech stalwart Luke Slater, AKA Planetary Assault Systems, for a (typically) synapse-melting exercise in dancefloor oblivion. His remix of "The Outsider" is exactly as you'd expect: dense, clunky and prone to self-harm, periodically dissolving in a haze of white noise as a jangling lead melody struggles to keep it contained. The original, by comparison, takes things easy, spinning a Klockian web of off-key notes around sizzling hats and the kind of fathomless, End-of-Time kick that marked out predecessors "Sabre" and "Massk." It's mesmerising, and pips Slater's effort by some margin.
B-side "Solution," meanwhile, pips both. Executed with the minimum of fuss, its delayed kick pattern hints ever so subtly at 2-step, but sticky hats, deafening bass and pitch black blasts of horn keep things firmly in the "warehouse techno" bracket, while drowned voices and a trickling lead melody—both emblematic of the headfuck sound—take things deep into the darkside. It's grim, for sure. But if it's grim techno you're after, you'll find little better this year.
Tracklist A The Outsider (Luke Slater's ME Remix)
B1 The Outsider
B2 Solution