We don't often get political here on Aivazovsky Waves so to speak, but this one calls for it, it really does.

    The ungodly tendency to put beatless tracks in techno releases continues to get perpetuated. This time the sacrilegious act was committed (produced?) by Germany-based Sascha Borchardt aka Monoloc, and the techno/non-techno ratio in this LP is almost disturbing. The only tracks that could be tagged as techno are #2, 5, 6, 9, 10 (maybe track 11)—the majority being either completely beatless or downtempo. At this rate, this isn't a techno LP by any stretch, but a techno EP with another downtempo EP stuffed in between it—or rather vice versa. Don't get this message wrong—by no means are we against leftfield electronics; what we're saying is, perhaps the right way to publish these tracks would be through two separate releases? One EP for techno and one for... whatever you're going to call it? Just so that strictly techno-interested buyers wouldn't feel ripped off once they play the release in their players after buying it without pre-listen, based on pure trust invested in label and artist that the product they purchased is all-techno or techno for the most part.

    Again, we don't often refer to other artists inside the reviews that don't pertain to them, and admittedly, it is rather unprofessional (as unprofessional as turning a review into a tangentially related piece of mind, yes), but whichever producer thinks of doing what Monoloc did with this release, we appeal to you—take a page out of SHXCXCHCXSH('s) book. They are generally known as a techno act, and when they felt they wanted to do some really obscure production, they did so with SsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSs, and they didn't try to sell it as techno by shoehorning a couple techno tracks in it. Take similar points from Tolkachev—he wanted to produce something completely out of ordinary so he released Grain, and he clearly had no intent of disguising it as a techno LP by having the first track be techno or something similar to that effect. If you are a producer who produces several hardly compatible genres (such as techno and ambient), then how about doing what these artists did, better yet—get a different moniker for each different genre you decide to produce your music in, the way Danny Kreutzfeldt was doing it (by the way, the sheer amount of respect we've got for Kreutzfeldt for doing so that cannot be put into words). We believe that this is the right way and that it should be the common way of doing things, but unfortunately it generally doesn't even come close to that with techno/leftfield artists, and under the circumstances established on techno scene today, these three examples call for some consideration, because if this tendency prevails, we'll soon have but a pair of techno tracks on most so-called "techno LPs".

    So consider what was said here, producers, and we'll consider making an actual review of release next time, instead of giving our readers a 3½ paragraph, stretched-out opinion piece which could essentially be condensed to one sentence: "If you're doing techno—damn it, do techno." We're actually kind of sorry for not just writing that instead. Hopefully you'll excuse us, folks, for being overly passionate about techno. Clearly more so than Monol... Okay, not going there. End of "review".

Release Type: Album

Release Date: 4 November 2016

Release Format: Digital ● Vinyl

Record Label ● Catalog: Dystopian ● DYSTOPIANLP01

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