Much-celebrated Kompakt staple THE FIELD returns to the spotlight with new album THE FOLLOWER, his fifth full-length offering after "From Here We Go Sublime" (KOMPAKT RSD 02 CD 57), "Yesterday And Today" (KOMPAKT 193 CD 72), "Looping State Of Mind" (KOMPAKT 241 CD 94) and "Cupid's Head" (KOMPAKT 290 CD 110). Swedish soundsmith Axel Willner is well-known for his mastery when it comes to the allusive layering of loops, but it was with his last album "Cupid's Head" that a newly-found, somewhat pressing snappishness started to replace the soft-hued sonics of his ambient-infused techno, imbued with a darker mood and stronger footing than before. A carefully gauged balance of stoic motorik and gloomy drones was key here - just as it is for THE FOLLOWER which goes even further in blurring the lines between concrete experimentation, body music and precisely laid-out arrangement, leading to one of the most rhythmically and texturally engaging listening experiences in Willner's catalogue.
"As always when starting a new album, I wanted to do something that sounds fresh, but doesn't stray too far from what I have so far done as THE FIELD - and that's always the tricky part", says Willner, adding that "the whole album came around through experimenting with a lot of new recording equipment and gear". That source of inspiration seems to have worked rather well, with title track THE FOLLOWER opening on a surprisingly muscular groove and setting the tone for what could be considered THE FIELD's most floor-attuned work yet - a raw bounce dripping with foggy acid and marching percussion catches long-standing fans off-guard while providing a perfect entry point for curious newcomers. Pulling no punches, Willner's knack for entwined drones and mutating loops is very much in place, but finds powerful support in an excitingly sturdy bassline and guitar-like screeches. It's been a few years since THE FIELD's band dissolved, which led to more club-oriented live gigs - an experience that definitely informed THE FOLLOWER's sound without interrupting this very personal continuum of expressive means. This is ambient techno on steroids, with a dose of metal machine music for good measure.
Follow-up cut PINK SUN quickly finds its pace with one of these perpetually rotating hooks Willner is known for, while MONTE VERITÀ specializes in tunefully glitched vocal samples with accompanying bass workout - a powerful and propelling album build-up that finds its first moment of introspection with the mountainous SOFT STREAMS, an exciting synth journey that emits both ethereal and kinetic propensities. RAISE THE DEAD presents THE FIELD's focussed sonic storytelling at its minimalist best, gyrating around a basic motive for a while before joining an earthy beat and opening up the sunshine roof. It's a winding, hypnotic track that also works particularly well as transition to the album's remarkable closing chapter: the slow-paced REFLECTING LIGHTS shows Willner at his most refined, evoking his often-quoted appreciation of Wolfgang Voigt's ambient project GAS as well as an obvious fondness for kraut synthesists and their trance-inducing exploits. "'The Follower' is about old myths, finding utopia and how mankind repeatedly makes the same mistakes over and over", explains Willner, but he remains an artist who prefers keeping things uncommented and the mistery intact - his latest full-length certainly doesn't need more introductions: it evidently shows a maturity and consistent evolution of THE FIELD's trademark style of creation, but may very well be considered one of his most vibrant and visceral outings yet.

The lastest full-length effort from LA-based
synth mastermind JOHN TEJADA
· An unabashedly dreamy collection of 11 expertly crafted cuts that rank among the artist's best work to date
Following his much-acclaimed full-length "The Predicting Machine" (KOMPAKT 267 CD 102) and a slew of pop-infused 12" singles - "We Can Pretend" (KOMPAKT 286) and "Somewhere" (KOMPAKT 264) -, LA-based synth mastermind JOHN TEJADA returns with new album SIGNS UNDER TEST: comprised of all-new material, this latest effort sees the studio wizard digging deeper into his modules, unearthing particularly dreamy tracks that rank among John's most accomplished work to date.
From the get-go, SIGNS UNDER TEST presents itself as a whole new ball of wax, reaching even further into the depths of JOHN TEJADA's hot-wired synth machinery, while cranking up the already stunning levels of musicality on display in his oeuvre. Opener TWO 0 ONE serves as a prime example for the sonic aplomb in place, thanks to its beautifully rendered melodies and finely tuned textures – a perfect storm made of cosy melancholy and celestial bliss. This expertly wrought piece serves as a particularly strong entry point for the album, setting the bar high for its successors.
An unabashedly brilliant listen, the album continues its thrilling journey with existential bleepfest Y 0 WHY and the bass-heavy BEACHT, followed by the intricately arpeggiated R.U.R. and brooding electronica vignette VAALBARA. The second part is ringed in by the undulating CRYPTOCHROME - another proof for JOHN TEJADA's uncanny ability to craft tracks that operate as distinguished bouncers as well as introspective meditations. The deliberate vivacity of connecting cuts RUBRIC and PENUMBRA only confirms the growing suspicion that this might be a timeless masterpiece we're dealing with.
As gorgeous as it sounds, texture isn't the only star here: a surprisingly diverse set of rhythm patterns suffuses the mesmerizing synth licks - take for example the multilayered ENDORPHINS effortlessly switching between straight techno stylings and vintage breakbeat ornaments. Meanwhile, electronic landscape painting MEADOW purrs away on its road to redemption, priming the listener for closing cut HEAVE IN SIGHT, an atmospherically rich composition that marries abstract storytelling with a flurry of reversed synth sounds.
"There's a bit more dreamy tape wobble going on throughout", says the producer about his latest effort, "as I've gone quite analog tape with my delays and patches - on the verge of actually being broken, which gives them a nice character." It also might explain the air of
intimacy surrounding the album - a quite personal listening experience taking the listener up close with its details and idiosyncracies, "maybe even more than before, as I've tried to cut out distractions and really focus on the production."
The result is a record that is not meant to be trendy, even though it's a product of analog hardware connoisseurship: "Everything is built from the ground up using hardware synths - mostly analog, but that's a bit annoying to say nowadays. It's not a record that fits in with any current stuff, but something that hopefully holds up as it ages. Something that hopefully reveals more on repeated listens." In our humble opinion, this mission has been more than accomplished with SIGNS UNDER TEST.

Moodmusic affiliate Dave DK is no stranger to Kompakt, having featured on several of their compilations over the years and done the odd remix. Their relationship is formalised here with the arrival of Val Maira, the Berlin producer's third album and a concerted attempt to go beyond the impressive production skills previously shown by Dave DK to offer "deeply personal expressiveness and emotional impact". Listening through the eleven tracks on this double LP edition, you'd have to say it's a success; Val Maira is rife with the kind of emotive electronics you expect from a Kompakt LP and is perfectly sequenced to run through a gamut of moods. A fine album from DDK.

A trio of guitar, bass and drums.

Brandt Brauer Frick have done it again. Last year, the German trio’s debut album, ‘You Make Me Real’, successfu lly fused techno and classical music. The two forms are so different - regimented rhythms and laptop production on the one hand, complex musical theory and virtuosity on the other - you’d be forgiven for thinking a true hybrid was impossible. But tracks such as ‘Bop’, a gently building pulse of shuffling polyrhythms, rich, resonant pianos and warm synth bass, saw them pull it off in some considerable style. ‘You Make Me Real’ may have been built from classical sounds, but the result didn’t sound out of place in a minimal techno set. Now Daniel Brandt, Jan Brauer and Paul Frick have taken their genre-defying experiment to the next level with the Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble. Think of it as BBF V2.0. They’ve ditched the computers they used to arrange ‘You Make Me Real’ and expanded the band to a ten-piece so they can play handcrafted dance grooves completely live. Earlier this year at the Eurosonic conference in Holland, they recreated ‘You Make Me Real’ on stage using 80 pages of sheet music per track. The result was weird, compelling and unlike anything else. ‘Mr Machine’ sees the group reinterpret five tracks from ‘You Make Me Real’; "Mi Corazon", "Bop", "You Make Me Real", "Caffeine" and "Teufelsleiter". There are also two cover versions -‘Pretend’ by Emika and ‘A 606 N Rock N Roll’ by James Braun - although they’re so different they amount to new songs. A completely new track rounds things off.