Top 100 Chart placements for Tresor Records
Updated 2 months ago
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Juan Mendez aka Silent Servantis a figure in techno history that needs little introduction. As a member of the Sandwell District collective and the label's art director he collaborated on works that were responsible for a global focal shift in the genre as their label adapted and challenged the paradigm of minimal techno, taking influence from other sources such as dub, post-punk, and even classical minimalism. But Mendez's relationship with music goes back much further than these seminal releases. With In Memoriam, Silent Servant's latest release on Tresor Records, Mendez writes a deeply personal memoir of a 30-plus year career spent exploring and absorbing the shadowy side of music; a carefully crafted elegy to people, places, and times past and the lasting effect they have on the present. Across the four tracks, Mendez pays tribute to the earliest Detroit techno and electro, the Belgian EBM movement and the wave music that followed, the monumental dub techno sound from Berlin, and the harder, abrasive sound of the UK at the turn of the last millennium; exploring and referencing the genres that informed his later work. Each track name gives a hint to the timeframe he is revisiting and re-contextualising the E.P. repurposes the styles that exerted an influence on him. This E.P. represents a pure distillation of Mendez's memories whilst also cementing his place in the current and future sound of 21st century techno; aware of where we came from but focusedon where we are heading.
French producer December returns to Tresor with An Accident In Favor Of Human Life, the second part of his Transform project, which continues the exploration of themes such as hybridisation and the boundaries of the self that were undertaken in June 2023's What Remains of Us. Transform Part 2 finds December increasing the intensity of his output as the Industrial and electro influences meet a more melodic and emotional approach to the darker tone of part 1. His musical crucible coming to the fore by adding a punching tungsten toughness to the beats, welded and riveted to myriad other sources including post punk, ambient, and musique concrète. The product of this is a collection of juddering and staccato pieces that call to mind steampunk as much as the glittering sci-fi most often invoked by electronic works. As per the first instalment, the cover art of In Favor Of Human Life continues the ongoing creative partnership between December and visual artist Marie Quéau whose photograph appears to show a human face that straddles the boundary between the familiar and unsettling. When Parts 1 & 2 are listened to consecutively, as a complete work, elements in one half reverberate into the other revealing a refined pattern and a landmark work by an artist coming to a new peak of creative power.
Argentinian producers Oscean return to Tresor with Chronium Radiance, their longest release so far, in which the duo continue the evolution of their sound, coalescing the elemental ideas explored in their first two releases and yielding sublime results. This landmark release will no doubt be seen as the point at which Oscean crystalised a trademark sound, balancing complex percussive rhythms with pulsing and cadenced music in which a universe of often oxymoronic ideas can be found, melded together with a deft touch to create a blissful sonic whole. There is a sense of space and airiness to side A of the record as synth parts drift across the more solid-feeling landscape of the basslines and percussion: Opening track ChronoRebel is a propulsive trance induction that brings forth cinematic images of billowing clouds. This nebulous quality is continued on Neon Harmonies where the highly syncopated drum track weaves through a haze of colourful synths that while lower tempo than the previous track somehow has an energy of a faster piece. The flip side has a denser, darker quality to it beginning with Blaster Imploder, a deep and funky track that continues the convention-defying theme by being powerful and frenetic whilst also having a soft and exultant sheen. This is followed by Echoes of Chaos which closes out the 12" with a dynamic beat and spacious, sweeping synths that feel as though we are passing through the atmosphere heading towards some distant nebula. Alongside the tracks on the vinyl release, three digital tracks expand on the universe Oscean have built with a truly ecstatic love theme, a retelling of Neon Harmonies that unveils a river of dub, and a low tempo, drifting yet no-less affecting piece acting as the closing titles to our voyage to this Osceanic world.