ARTICLES
Benoît Pioulard's Précis
Label: Dynamophone
Label: Hidden Shoal

ALBUMS
Aemae
A Lily
Arc Lab
Blotnik Brothers
Gui Boratto
Cagesan
Jeremy Caulfield
Loren Dent
Do Make Say Think
Eats Tapes
Enduser
Domink Eulberg
Explosions in the Sky
Michael Fahres
The Field
Frivolous
Maximilian Hecker
Hug
Hush Arbors
Jan-M. Iversen
Espen Jørgensen
Kattoo
O.Lamm
Bruce Levingston
Tobias Lilja
Lusine
Marcia Blaine School
The Missing Ensemble
Nebulo
Ölvis
Charlemagne Palestine
Palomar
Pornopop
The Postmarks
Propergol Y Colargol
The Retail Sectors
R/R Coseboom
Sankt Otten
Scratch Massive
Slow Dancing Society
Stars of the Lid
subtractiveLAD
Sunosis
Aoki Takamasa
Amon Tobin
Tokyo Mask
Kate Wax
Wes Willenbring
Windmill

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
Chaos.Lovers
Cryosphere
Hub: 2004-2005
Rufs
Satoshi Tomiie

3" /7" /10"/12"/EPs
Agnes
AM/PM
Arctic Sunrise
Audion
Characterize 1
Dartriix
Death is Nothing To Fear
Don't Be A Stranger
Einóma
Fusiphorm
Heartthrob
Human Nature
Infant Cycle / Antmanuv
Lilienweiss
Luci
Mauve
Paco Osuna
Ben Parris
Carola Pisaturo
Portable
Sutekh
System
Aoki Takamasa
Cortney Tidwell
Andy Vaz

Hug: Heroes
Kompakt

Talk about precocious: John Dahlbäck (aka Hug) is a mere 21 years old, yet somehow has managed to leave his fingerprints on more than seventy releases, forty remixes, and seventy-five compilations (for imprints like Deep4life, Dessous, Morris Audio, and his own Pickadoll) in only four years. His 70-minute Heroes is the inaugural full-length by a K2 artist, K2 being the sub-label Kompakt co-head Wolfgang Voigt established to bring ‘minimal techno' back into the fold. Though Hug's material is often stripped down, ‘minimal' remains a relative term so longtime Kompakt listeners will find no shortage of detail to latch onto here, and consequently will hear Heroes as much maximal as minimal. In many ways, the Hug style is textbook Kompakt but Dahlbäck also distinguishes himself in a couple of key respects: in standout cuts like “Tiny Stars” and “Fluteorgie,” he deftly exploits the musical potential offered by myriad noises as rhythmic accents, and, as “Tiny Stars” and “The Platform” attest, he also possesses a talent for crafting Kraftwerk-styled melodies (the five-note theme in “Tiny Stars” is so lovely in its melancholy it would do the Düsseldorf legends proud). Elsewhere, a surging mix of Chain Reaction, bleepy electro, and Cologne techno opens the set promisingly in “Raido” and, by alternating glissandi synth flares with martial snare patterns, “Birds” could pass easily for a Daniel Bell homage. Heroes isn't necessarily Kompakt at its peak but its collection of clubby electro-techno, slippery grooves, and syncopated swing is certainly strong enough.

April 2007