Ostgut Ton Digital - Reviews

Off the back of Ben Klock's smash Berghain mix comes a handful of awesome 12"s, including a tasty futurist-meets-retro split from Kevin Gorman and James Ruski,n with one operating in the crystalline, metallic territory of Vainio, the other going for wheezing, fractured machinations. Suffice to say, the whole package is excellent, but here's my two choice picks....

Berghain: pt 3 - Echologist / Jonas Kopp.
This one's currently getting my vote, with a Ben Klock re-edit of Echologist's Dirt on the A-side conjouring dark, post-industrial landscapes, full of hiss and glitch, with the kick drum mutedly thumping away, deep in the mix. The shaky dub chords push their way upwards, evolving on a minute scale, with only the clatter of the snare breaking through the tension and destabilising the taut atmosphere. On the flip, Jonas Kopp conjours a fresher, cleaner take on dark dub, with pin-prick hi-hats breaking through the cloud of decaying bass and a cleaner chord snaking it's way upwards.

Berghain: pt. 1 Martyn / Roman Lindau
My other favourite from this series is definitely the Martyn / Roman Lindau split, with Lindau representing a much more conventional techno pallette - deep filtered kicks, shuffling hi-hats and tight percussion embedded in subtle melodies. Martyn heads in a wildly different direction with Miniluv, a groove-driven monster based around syncopated percussion, throbbing kicks and twisting off-beats. Breaking down in rattle of redux-heavy metallic percussion, it finally falls in line with a steady, rhythmic piano riff that neatly straightens the wayward percussion. As it builds and tightens, bringing in a shuffling hi-hat pattern that leaves Miniluv feeling like an unusually heavy Theo Parrish number. With both techno and dubstep / funky pedigree, it's going to be a gig cross-over number, though maybe not quite as massive as Klock's rework of his and Spaceape's Is This Insanity? Epic 12" nonetheless.