Review: Very few modern producers are adept at crafting hardware-driven techno, but Ali Berger is one of the exceptions. As Sump Pump so effortlessly demonstrates, the Midwest artist takes up the mantle of artists like DBX, Chris Sattinger and Woody McBride. The title track is a frenetic, stripped back affair, full of analogue blips and featuring a pitched down vocal sample. "Voices" is similar, if slightly slower tempo, as a robotic vocal unfolds over a raw Chicago jacking rhythm, while Berger turns up the intensity levels with the machine funk of "Microbial Corrosion". Despite this less than polished approach to production, Berger is also capable of subtlety, as the chord heavy "Dreaming of a World" and the abstract "Pattern Buffers Depolarizing" both demonstrate.
