Planetary Assault Systems At Juno Download

Review: Two of the best tracks from Luke Slater's mighty Messenger album get the remix treatment. Under Silent Servant's care, "Bell Blocker" is transformed into an esoteric dance floor track. The hissing percussion that prevailed on the original is still audible, but the US producer deploys sonic blips over a pulsing, clinical groove - and offsets its functionality with a dreamy chord sequence. The Black Dog offer even more radical interpretations of "Beauty In The Fear". The Sheffield act's second version has some bearing on the original but once again spacey pads temper the splurging bass. However, it's the first 'Destroyed on Purpose' remix, with its gentle atmospheric ambience, that really rings changes to Slater's tortured techno.

Review: Luke Slater is a survivor. Not in the physical sense, even though he has lived enough for three people, but because two decades after the UK producer started putting out music, his latest album features moments where the listener is forced to admit that it follows a path that few others have dared to venture down. The main reason for Slater's ongoing artistic relevance is down to him opting for a new approach. Whereas during the golden age of UK techno he was writing his own rules as he went, gifting the world "Booster", "In From The Night" and My Wise Yellow Rug", in his modern-day incarnation he has learnt invaluable insights from the output of those he influenced, absorbing their nuances as a starting point. However, he then applies his own wonderfully skewed thinking, which explains the panning, whiplash rhythm of "Bell Blocker", a track that sounds both familiar and utterly alien, or "Wriss", which - unusually for Slater's techno productions - features a vocal snippet. Invariably, comparisons will be made to other Ostgut artists, but it's hard to imagine any of them daring to even imagine a track like "Rip The Cut". In true PAS form, the beats sound like they're exploding from the speakers as the bass patterns build and build to the point of distortion, tempered only by reverberating claps.