- Copenhagen’s mysterious masked men return for another instalment of melodic techno on their Tattoo label. Previous releases have been a bit hit and miss, but they seem to have found their way again this time around. Again, the series continues with two numbered tracks, each represented by a photograph of a tattoo on the inner label.
‘Nine’ is the more dancefloor rocking cut of the two, building up steadily with a fuzzy prodding bassline and see-sawing bleeps before unleashing the main melody, a colourful pitch-shifting synth that wraps itself around the other elements well. Melancholic chords are added, but instead of sounding too busy, the three melody lines intertwine perfectly with each other to send the floor into rhapsody.
‘Ten’ (which also features on Laurent Garnier’s recent RA podcast) is on a deeper, Detroit influenced tip; taking the genre’s delayed keys and tribal percussion and marrying them to an insistent European bassline and steady four-to-the-floor kick. It all bubbles along nicely enough, but I get the feeling that the kick needed to have a deeper, fuller quality to it rather than the weak, flimsy one that they decided to use. Apparently they had some difficulty mastering this one, so there’s a possibility that it may have something to do with that.
It’s their strongest contribution to the series in a while, however, and the deeper stylings of ‘Ten’ may win them some fans that wouldn’t otherwise pick up their records.