Available on: Ghostly International LP

Like, I imagine, a lot of people who started getting into techno in the early noughties, I’ll always have a soft-spot for Matthew Dear. The slinky and warm-hearted micro-house (remember that?) of his breakthrough track ‘Dog Days’ helped introduce me and countless other former indie-ish kids to the joys and mysteries of techno. And then, once he’d got us curious, he blew our heads off with the chainsawing insanity of Audion’s almighty ‘The Pong’, ‘Kisses’ and ‘Mouth to Mouth’ trilogy. It was a brutal and brilliant welcome, and I for one pretty much stopped listening to anything with guitars and choruses and all that stuff for a few years.

But Matthew Dear didn’t. Since the twisted pop of 2007’s Asa Breed, he’s been increasingly focussed on the craft of songwriting, while his Audion alias continues to deal in full-strength shots of techno. Black City, Dear’s new album occupies a murky, in-between world; it’s constructed largely from guitars, bass and vocals, but is far from being a “rock” album, with Dear using these elements as blocks of raw sound to be patiently layered together into interlocking patterns.

Black City is aptly named; there’s allusions to the clamour and romantic decay of the urban landscape throughout, as on the passing-traffic honks of ‘I Can’t Feel’ and the broken neon buzzes of ‘You Put a Smell On Me’ (which is a whole lot better than that title might imply). It can’t help but recall the greatest of all cities-at-night records, Talking Heads’ Fear of Music, and on tracks such as the ‘Soil to Seed’, with its starkly funky silhouettes of bass, the lineage is particularly apparent.

However, for a record so in thrall to the witching-hour, Black City is disappointingly devoid of any real tension. Largely, this is due to Dear’s voice. He’s not a natural singer, and his default mode is a mumbling, detached drawl that’s like a slacker version of David Bowie. Any songs are going to sound half-asleep when smothered by such a voice, but Dear’s tunes here are studiously restrained to begin with. Even ‘Little People (Black City)’ – the most ambitious track here, stitched together from three distinct movements –just cruises on by politely, never reaching the dramatic heights that one has the right to expect from a nine minute disco-house epic. It’s crying out to be covered and brought to life by someone like Kelley Polar – someone who isn’t afraid to lose his cool, who knows that ridicule is nothing to be scared of.

These grumblings aside, though, Black City is a fine record. Dear’s productions have a lovely poise and harmony to them, with each distinct element seeming to bob around on the waves and eddies of the others. He remains a master technician, and Black City frequently sounds amazing; ‘Slowdance’s synths swell and fizz like a summer rainstorm, and ‘More Surgery’ is delicately ripped apart by 303 squiggles, picked out with pinpoint accuracy.

To use that old cliché, Black City is like a soundtrack to a film that hasn’t been made yet. But that isn’t necessary a good thing; this understated record seems most suited to being the background to something else, rather than being the action itself. It’s a nice record to have about the place once it’s playing, but I can’t imagine ever needing to listen to it. Which is kind of sad, for those of us who have previously found Matthew Dear’s music to be addictive and even, in its own way, genuinely life-changing.

Simon Hampson