Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald are a natural musical fit. This, their first long player as a collaboration, brings together two decades of work into a selection of tracks that works best played through from start to finish. This is not music in a hurry, and it takes a while for the ideas to involve, but that isn’t a problem as the mood is carefully judged from the outside. What we get, then, is a blend of organised beats and sounds and experimentation in the feeling that the music is moving by instinct rather than calculation – if that makes sense! ‘Electric Garden’ contains most of the duo’s ideas, with a warm organ sound and deep, mottled bass, and an urgency to the beats that keeps things moving. Gradually over time it develops into more of a dub, before coming back in another guise half way through the album. It becomes a refrence point in an album that is good to listen to, with all the ingredients that good, deep instrumental techno should have – a sense of movement and atmosphere being just two. ‘Borderland’ works a treat late at night or early in the morning, forming a steadying presence in the front of your mind.
5 out of 5
Reviewed By Ben Hogwood