- If you needed any more convincing that 2007 saw something of a dub techno revival, look no further than Sven Schienhammer. As Quantec, this year he released two 12s of quality post-Basic Channel dub techno on Styrax Leaves and Echocord, and now he is back for more of the same on Francois K´s Wavetec imprint. Although the genre crown might currently belong to DeepChord´s Echospace project, they’ll surely be looking over their shoulders at Schienhammer – although where Modell and Hitchell are more concerned with heavily embellished textures and atmospheres, Schienhammer sticks to a mantra of “simplicity is key”, gently nudging his tracks close to the dancefloor using only a few elements.
The A-side here is a case in point. Repetitive and hypnotic, what at first seems still and steady slowly reveals itself to be dynamic and changing. A quiet drone infinitesimally increases throughout giving pressure and weight to the finale, accompanied by clouds of smoky sounds swirling over a steady heartbeat. Incredibly it takes nearly three minutes for the snare to drop, but rather than let it sit there, Schienhammer lets it slowly dissolve down in the wash of dividing synth splashes such that it never seemed there it all. That is, until it suddenly drops again. By the time it all fades out at ten minutes there is so much going on that the beginning seems a million miles away.
The title track ´Aural Dazzling´ is more straight up, content to let the echoing patterns do the work. Here perhaps a little more bass weight or some more high end percussion would tease out more, but still, there is not much to complain about.
Not as profoundly deep or banging as Basic Channel, but like Echospace, a more emotive trip. Overall it’s great to see some good old heroin techno enjoying something of a revival.
TracklistA Realm Of Possibilities
B Aural Dazzling