★★★☆☆
Bustling through with little time to waste, Mike Dehnert sets about most techno styles as if he’s in for a windfall should he tick them all off. The German connects the dots in logical fashion as well, starting off exploring melody (he does appear to have all the time in the world to go voyaging, especially when supplemented with ambient fragments), before realizing there’s a race to be won and the clock is ticking. The title track is kick drum heaven as it strips back to a techno for beginners guide — hi-hat whiplash and chords shaking like a leaf — showing Dehnert turning on the brutality with tap-like ease obliterating the album’s groundwork. “Grundform” is as muscular, if a little more drunken-sounding (or possibly even abstract), as its grainy, lo-spec layout makes it appetizingly rough and ready, sneering with disdain as it argues that using high definition production values is tantamount to cheating.
The ambient fragments having now become all-or-nothing snapshots of disorder, techno trademarks chaperon the solid if unspectacular “Panel” and less bogged down “Resize,” as the album begins to steady itself again. Dehnert completes the mission with the housier “Granulat,” that’s either a natural conclusion or has swung too far the other way. If you think it’s over too quickly, simply play it again on repeat.
File under: Mumu Boy, Sacha Rydell, Delta Funktionen