Various – Tresor Compilation Vol. 6

Legit why did they leave Fumiya Tanaka - One Sparkle off the vinyl release? It's the best track on the compilation TBH...

Quite unintentionally, I think this compilation brought together a clutch of tracks and slight variations in style which ended up showing techno of that era at its most elegant yet still unaffected and 'purist'. The genre had certainly had time to mature up till that point given that the comp came out in the late-nineties. But I think it's safe to say that technology was still at enough of an evolving stage for artists to have continued to be largely using analogue machines and techniques, implying interesting stylistic limitations on what was achievable quickly whilst maintaining spontaneity. I think these tracks display those, if you like, benign limitations. The tracks are simple, often loopy and quite minimal. However there's no denying the subtlety and depth of atmosphere in virtually all the music here. Usually, although not always, that atmosphere is quite a dark one, albeit from my point of view, a deliciously dark one. Also, each of the music makers here demonstrated on this collection and in their later works, a mastery of 'the tweak', plus a great sense of almost 'anti-musicality' if you get my drift. In other words, don't be fooled by the apparent surface simplicity of these tracks into thinking that whoever made them *wasn't* thinking. Even a cursory listen [preferably at a good volume] will disabuse you of that notion. My favourites then, and my favourites now are: Regis's 'Theme from Streetwalker', Surgeon & James Ruskin's seldom bettered 'Sound Pressure', the Surgeon remix of Chrislo's 'L'eau', '101/106' by Heiko Laux, 'Used to Kiss Me' by Blake Baxter and of course, from the master of deceptively-simple, 'Thought Process' by Infiniti AKA Juan Atkins. They still sound good to me and the other tracks are also excellent and memorable too. So much for the common notion that all techno is forgettable.