- You can get a feel for Terminal Operations' M.O. by scanning the titles on its inaugural release. There's a track called "Direkte Gewalt" ("direct violence") from a Hamburg-based artist named Fallbeil ("guillotine"), and new producer Neuspotter NS465 takes their name from '80s Japanese science fiction. The former track is ravaged acid-electro, presided over by a distorted husk that was once probably a voice. Neuspotter, meanwhile, turns in something more abstract: the claps and kicks on "1.18" palpitate furiously without ever propelling us anywhere, leaving us prey to the thrashing of an angry synth arp.
The rest of Terminal Operations 001 continues in the same vein, its brutalist techno and electro matching new wave Dutch-school artists like Gesloten Cirkel in deviance and aggression. (Though, as it happens, the label is based in Berlin.) All four producers are relative unknowns; Kuno probably has the highest profile thanks to an excellent recent collab with Crème Organisation affiliate Koehler. His "Tactical Deception" is the EP's grooviest moment, its gaunt melodies and loping electro groove leaving gaps in all the right places. Spaceinvasion follows with "Radio Fix," and straightens things out with its wonderfully obnoxious acid burbles.
TracklistA1 Kuno - Tactical Deception
A2 Spaceinvasion - Radio Fix
B1 Fallbeil - Direkte Gewalt
B2 Neuspotter NS465 - 1.18