VA - New Releases by OnlyBeats - [S]

Overview

One thread ties together the heavyweights of this batch: each of them releases on his own label. Sandro Galli, a Roman active since 1995 — nicknamed 'uomo bassline' back in the nineties — cuts a raw, hypnotic techno triptych for his Luminar Records: 'Orbital Error', 'Positive Mass Propulsion' and 'Warp Drive', three tracks between 140 and 142 BPM that play like a single twenty-minute piece. Sisko Electrofanatik, alias of Francesco Fortuna and another Rome native, brings 'Xenom' to his Gain Records in three different lengths; his peak-time techno has passed through the hands of Carl Cox and Adam Beyer, and in 2022 Italy's Dance Music Awards crowned him best techno producer. And Sidney Charles, the Hamburg native who in 2023 turned his Heavy House Society into a Watergate Berlin residency, splits in two here: 'Bass Rider' rides broken garage bass while 'Ravin Crew' locks into minimal.

Around that axis of label bosses, four more names hold up the variety of the pack:

• SHRI (IND): three organic house collaborations on Amulanga, each with a different partner — Ilias Katelanos and Plecta, FAHGU, Murat Grayson — all pinned between 122 and 123 BPM.
• Sinitsin: six electro pieces with Detroit roots on Electro Music Coalition, almost all orbiting around D; the coherence of an EP rather than loose cuts.
• Subreachers: half a dozen drum & bass tracks at 160 on Fokuz Recordings, with 'Ozzy' as the only half-tempo breather.
• Seph: hard techno on Nucleon that climbs to the 155 of 'Shutdown' after the restrained opening of 'Hiddem'.

That the most recognizable names in the lot release on their own turf is no small detail: with nobody asking for compromises, Galli sounds rougher, Fortuna more direct, and Charles freer to jump from garage to minimal. The rest — from the six versions of Soul Dhamma's 'Flower' to the four Santos (IT) cuts — confirms the logic of the set: here the standard is set by the names, not the genres.