Mike Dehnert - Lichtbedingt (2014)

Three years after his last full-length album on Delsin, tireless techno producer Mike Dehnert is back. The 104th release on Delsin, entitled Lichtbedingt, counts 12 tracks and is yet another subtle evolution away from the chord driven, functional sound he has championed before now. Since his last album, Dehnert has continued to steer his Fachwerk label through the techno undergrowth and it has now amassed more than 25 releases in all. At the heart of the label's output has been Dehnert's own increasingly experimental techno and this new album is testament to the producer's continued exploration of the form. Where Framework was, in the words of Mike himself, ''focussed on the heavy techno form'', this album explores broken bass, swinging house and beatless electronic experimentalism amongst other things. ''I love to release music. I still enjoy the album writing process very much,'' says Mike, before adding, ''I have noticed that sometimes the success of a track depends on the light at club, which is why the album is called Lichtbedingt, meaning 'depends on light!'' The album starts off with a suitably sombre intro that features cold, slowly shifting synths. They set an uneasy and moody tone before 'Construction' settles into a fat, swaggering groove. From there you get lost in broken, ruptured, malfunctioning bits of hardware that sucks in random hi hats, bleeps and gurgles and then eventually get spat out the other side into a cantering bit of dubwise techno with paranoid vocal snippets. Moving along, the album throws plenty of diverse influences into the mix: 'Movement' is freaky and dynamic, skipping and pumping, ducking and diving through all sorts of occult synth sounds and shadowy vocal loops, then 'Single Action' is like a sledge hammer groove run through with harmonic elements that glint and glisten like diamonds in the rough. Classic sounding Dehnert tracks like 'ReRe' remind us where this producer has come from, whilst the breezy house swagger of 'Emlo' show us where he might be headed. Key to this album and Dehnert's output as a whole is, besides the killer grooves, the production: crisp and clean, full blooded and always outstanding, it makes his tracks leap out of the speakers and into minds, bodies and souls without relying on the usual tropes or same old cheap tricks.