Kareem - 11-1988 (2025)

An OG don of brooding Berlin techno and industrial musicks displays his stripes on a superb, smartly variegated album marking 30 years, and counting, of skin in the game - RIYL Sandwell District, Basic Channel, Huren, Conrad Pack.

Since his 1996 debut split with Hecate, Patrick Stottrop aka Kareem has stuck to uncompromising, uniquely varied, paths of pounding techno - industrial and dub-wise - alongside strands of dark ambient and instrumental hip hop. Sometimes they overlap explicitly, sometimes more subtly, but always with a real conviction in his thing, unswayed by trends that wash over Berlin each season.

‘11-1988’ now follows the crunching instrumental SP1200 beats of 2024’s ‘Trax for the year 3G$$$’ with a concerted effort to allow all his circles to bleed in a definitive album that scales from stately dub chord workouts adjacent beat-less BC or even Gas on ‘RAM’ to the darkside beauty of his title tune, via signature cuts of low down grungy techno sluggers and a couple of standout electro and half step D&B-type works that ideally temper and elevate the set.

As long time members of the Kareem fan club we provide assurances this album is among his best work. The beat-less parts are poised with a real mastery of atmosphere that also seeps over the purposefully tempo-dragged club cuts, teased out longform on the acidic gurgle of ‘FACEME’ or sleepwalking ace ‘Transit’, and 9 mins of killer dub techno at 115BPM in ‘BRIX-MIS’. But the biggest highlights for keener fiends is the way he steers his classic Ramadan hip hop sound nearer half step D&B on ‘EЯODING’, and shivers yer timbers electro style on ‘AUSFAHRT’, all ideally adding up to portray the artist’s chthonic, gothic prowess at its best.