Stanislav Tolkachev At Juno Download

Review: With his Modularz label becoming a firm bastion of unfiltered techno machinations, Developer sets about bombarding our senses with his productions and curations across this eight track release. His own track "Heated" rattles through an industrial landscape devoid of colour, instead populated by reverb decays and distant clangs of metal, while "Dirty Drive" sees him stretching to work a melody into his machinery, coming out with a metallic dub chord drowning in its own echo, and "Dirty Drive 2" adds some complexity to the musicality and creates an utterly engrossing hook in the process. Shifted's remix meanwhile keeps a careful distance between the clean beat and the murky textures of the dubby elements. Handing over to Truncate, "Diffraction" flips the script with a central melodic hook and a thoroughly austere beat, while Jonas Kopp's remix beefs up that same theme by doubling up the phrase and edging towards a peak time monster, and Markus Suckut takes things deeper and into a more house compatible realm. For a real lesson in refined techno composition however, head straight to Stanislav Tokachev's "Building Peaks". Simplicity doesn't come more captivating than that synth line.

Review: Ukrainian party and podcast conglomerate Techno.UA release their debut set, entitled Detroit Berlin Kiev: Techno Connection, a various artists EP consisting of local acts Etapp Kyle, Stanislav Tolkachev, Exploit and Italian Sascha DPL. Inspired by early Detroit and contemporary Berlin sounds, the Ukrainian unit represent an injection of fresh blood into the Eastern Bloc scene. Sascha DPL's moody blue synth line in "Last Night In Ukraine" warbles through sprinklings of white noise while looped crackle and pops reflect some lighter Fachwerk characteristics, while Etapp Kyle's delicate and heavyhearted "Limitless" exercises melodic Berlin blips over mournful pads as dreamlike sensibilities prevail. Stanislav Tolkachev references his knowledge of Detroit minimalism in "Negative Space" by combining the busyness of Drexciya with the pounding rhythms of Robert Hood. Finally, Exploit manifests James Brown's preachings of 'I'm black and I'm proud, say it loud' into a into a techy take on deep house with his track "Painkiller".