It’s rare, for most people, for an album to really catch your ears. British-born Dax J has really pulled off this debut on Electric Deluxe. It’s a gradual and grand realisation of how powerful some of this album is. This is, albeit typical, 130BPM techno at some of its highest quality. It stays safely within its genre but makes the absolute most of it. There’s plenty of detail and depth to keep your attention. You can hear something you didn’t notice before with every re-listen. Dax J was on Berghain’s line-up the weekend just gone, and it’s enviable if the audience got to hear these tracks in a big room.
It’s a close tie between Zulu Nation and The Quest as the best track on the album. In the former, the percussion has a lot of interesting moments and it’s got a lot of dance floor potential. The high-pitched cowbells work perfectly, and aren’t over done. Whether or not this track is anything to do with recently disgraced Afrika Bambaataa’s group Zulu Nation is anyone’s guess.
Where’s he going?
The Quest has so many elements thrown into it – dub techno, 80s synths, rave pad and some twisting acid lines towards the end. This is basically your big red button destroy the dance floor track.
This is not to mention the outro – Breaking Visions. The break beats on this are fresh, it’s short and sweet cutting in at just over 2 minutes long. The intro, Reign of Terror, holds itself through its main current of acid running through it.
The album cover
Sadly, because of the sheer strength of the rest of the album, Harry The Hatchet gets slightly lost and forgotten. It’s not a bad track, but it doesn’t stand out. It could have it uses. Maybe it could’ve been dropped completely.
Cartagena Square is built from field recordings from Cartagena, and creates a really nice breather in the middle of the organized chaos.
This is something to look forward to. Frankly some of the best techno out for a while. 12” and Digital download are out September 16th.