Is it just me or is there a something of an “industrial” revival happening in contemporary techno? Harder, faster, noisier, nastier seems to be back in vogue, and I for one am delighted about it.
The focus of the, er, nu-industrial wave is Berlin duo Ancient Methods, AKA Conrad ‘Baeks’ Protzmann and Trias. Ancient Methods’ material is tough-as-teflon but funky as hell; they manage to make music that sounds at once brutalising and, well, rather sensuous. The most recent AM offering is the sensational Fourth Method 12″: the lead track (they’re all untitled, which only adds to the sense of murk and disorientation) deploys all kinds of abrasive post-Vainio drone and scree, but rides a flexing rhythm reminiscent of recent Monolake and Surgeon. The B1 is more straightforward, the kind of juddering, high-BPM dub-techno redolent of Tresor and mid-90s Berlin, while the EP closes out with a broken, saw-toothed monster that comes over like T++ in an absolutely stinking mood. This 12″‘s predecessor, Third Method, is for me the duo’s most satisfying release to date: three tracks of metallic scourings and traumatised breakbeats chiselled to pert perfection. Check in particular ‘Else’ (Ugandan Method), a rhythmically challenging dancefloor-thresher wreathed in Sleeparchive-style bleeps. The more recent ‘The Whip’ isn’t even techno, at least not in the conventional since; it’s just a slow, primal-futurist drum tattoo that’s as captivating as it is simple. On the B-side kindred spirit Bjorn Svin contributes ‘Eat Like Hawk’, which sounds like Hawtin’s mix of La Funk Mob fed through a meat-grinder. In a good way.
These tunes are cruel to be kind, they ask a lot of you but they offer a rich, rich dividend. Check them out, but before you do that, download Ancient Methods’ mix for Mnml Ssgs, a riveting session that finds Vestigial and Roger Rotor rubbing shoulders with Patrick Pulsinger and Thomas Bangalter (there’s also a big presence from Sähkö, Raster-Noton and Robert Henke, reminding us that the world of sound-art, glitch and ‘gallery techno’ is where the industrial aesthetic has been hiding and festering for most of the noughties). Most importantly, this mix – for my money the most important and impressive of 2009 – shows that the modern industrial techno sound, unlike that of yore, is about nuance as well as brute-force. The influence of Basic Channel on Ancient Methods is palpable and profound: what makes their metallic ruffage easy for a pansy like me to countenance is its dubwise modulation and processing; moreover the beats are sophisticated, syncopated and polyrhythmic, full of squashed, Shed-style breaks and the kind of broken tunnelist grooves so beloved of Berghain and its residents. It’s music that’s ascetic and severe, but somehow luxuriant at the same time. I simply can’t recommend it enough.
British techno has always had a close and concerted association with the industrial, culminating in the discography of Surgeon and Regis’s now defunct British Murder Boys project. BMB delivered both musically and in terms of concept and imagery – industrial as noise and provocation. ‘Don’t Give Way To Fear’ (2003) remains my favourite BMB 12”, with its jackhammering untitled A-side constituting raw, percussive techno at its absolute best, but every BMB production is worth checking: if you haven’t already, cop a sniff of the skippy, dubstep-alike ‘Be Like I Am’ from the Father Loves Us 12”, and the relatively “light” Basic Channel-esque Learn Your Lesson. With “minimal” long descended into tech-house water-treading and corporate hippie irrelevance, with people like Luciano delivering a fucking Tribute To The Sun (have you seen that cover art?), the cold-hearted, darkly humorous and confrontational output of the Murder Boys feels all the more valid, vital and – excuse the excessive alliteration, it’s always been a weakness – viable. British Murder Boys was a way for Surgeon and Regis to unite their super-human command of beat-mechanics with their love of situationism and the political incitements of heroes like Cabaret Voltaire, Whitehouse and Einsturzende Neubauten. Like Coil (who made some dubious forays into acid house at the dawn of the 90s) and TG before him, Regis in particular has always entertained an interest in the occult, ritualistic properties and potential of repetitive dance music; the idea that “techno” might be used to conjure transcendent states aside from and beyond mere hug-your-mates euphoria.