Perc Trax At Juno Download

Review: It seems as though Dutch producer Bas Mooy is attracting a lot of attention from the UK of late, which may be due to a strand of British industrialism and EBM rearing it's head in a recent and brutal resurgence. This time Bas Mooy releases his The Room At The End ep for industrialist flag bearers Perc Trax. "Fasad" dispenses with broken beats, hollow synths and broken radio transmission vocals, while "Loaded" initially takes a similar shape to the sparked delays of Roman Lindau's "Borne", only to morph into a brooding dynamism similar in sound to early Stroboscopic Artefacts releases. "Pose" is a slab of functional club techno, teetering on the edge of dub techno with it's filtered saw wave gestures. The sinister alien synth line of "Kneel" is the perfect cue for a nightclub to dim it's lights to a dark shade of crimson - ideal Berghain fodder.

Review: Perc Trax continues with their busy release schedule pushing up and coming Scottish producers BCR Boys into the frontline. Having already graced labels such as Synewave and Steve Stoll's now legendary Proper NYC, the boys get the chance to hit hard on one of the UK's finest. "The Myth" opens the release utilising the bare essentials of techno, pulsating and grinding as it goes. It's not so memorable but definitely a strong tool to hold up the floor. "Hybrid" is slightly sharper in production with a peak time edge, whilst "Flammable" jacks things up yet another level replacing the straight techno patterns with a shuffling percussion swing. Finally "Dalek" blasts the EP into orbit. As you'd expect from Perc, this is the epitome of solid techno.

Review: Labour Division takes inspiration from industrial culture is evident in both its title - surely a contender for a great, missing Swans LP - and on detached, fuzzy synth tracks like "Ident" and the menacing tones of "TTH", or the eerie textures and understated percussive hiss of the Regis-in-experimental-mode that is "Metal Image". But what is more interesting about this album is not its re-activation and presentation of existing narratives as they were, but its wholesale attempt to redefine their own vision for techno. It's a mightily ambitious objective and whether intentional or not, Walker and Matthews achieve this in places. "Mandate" is a relatively standard broken beat track, but is delivered with a rubbery bass and layers of grungy upbuilds, the sonic equivalent of a sack of soot and grime emptied over a glass table. Of more importance however is the fact that Labour Division proves that Forward Strategy Group don't preach sonic austerity because they have nothing else to say. "Nihil Novi" is a stripped back, crackling metallic groove combining the accessibility of Factory Floor with Ben Klock's rhythmic dexterity, "TTH" fuses the atmospheric textures that were audible on "Metal Image" with lithe back beats and "Cultivar", though set against a darker sonic backdrop, relies on similarly agile rhythms. At a time when all around them are marching to the death paced drums of Gothno, Labour Division sees FSG tease new ghosts and fresh horrors from their machines - as the eerie soundscapes and clinking chains on the supernatural "Fading Centres" so ably demonstrates.

Review: This EP of tracks taken from the recent full length "Labour Division" sums up the various stylistic approaches FSG take to the industrial sound on the album perfectly, with "Elegant Mistakes" a flailing, fractured rhythm shot through with the solder iron percussive stomp of Perc or Surgeon. Throughout there's a barely controlled sense of edginess that threatens to take control and unleash chaos without ever getting to that point. "Ident" meanwhile is a hazy melange of fuzzed out synths that provides some calm before the Factory Floor meets Ben Klock stripped back metallics of "Nihil Novi" appears. A radio mix of "Metal Image" completes the originals and doesn't remove one iota of the original's eerie textures and understated percussive hiss of Regis-in-experimental-mode. Exclusive to this digital release are remixes from Factory Floor's Dom, who turns in a mix of "Nihil Novi" packed with flailing 808 cowbells and industrial textures, and Sawf, who provides a dusty, lo-fi, dread-filled revision of "Mandate".

Review: Patrick Walker and Al Mathews may have made their name as FSG with the intense drum loops of Applied Generics, but they're clearly keen to expand their range. The title track is built on metal drums that drop like lead weights on the arrangement and are supported by enormous claps. The pace is slower but the intensity is not lost, and the same can be said about "Mandate". There, grungy industrial riffs slither in and out of dead paced broken beats before FSG welcome spooky ambient textures on "A Greyed Out Life". Perc Trax have managed to attract Factory Floor as remixers and their take on "Nihil Novi" fuses mellow synth lines with rigid beats and drums while Nik Void's solo take is all dark pulsing low ends and hissing hats.