It opens in a major key, a rarity in this corner of techno: 'Tenebrous' kicks off at 142 BPM in A Major, the first of three consecutive cards MaKabre keeps for himself, each on a different label: Isogon, Dolma, M4rlow. It is no curator's whim: the Brit has been at this since the mid-nineties, raised as a clubber at Morley's legendary The Orbit, with Umek and Surgeon among his stated influences; Apex Recordings, another label that releases his music, sums up his sound as 'dystopian hypnosis'. The journey's first milestone arrives at stop three: 'Cinders', the longest cut here at 5:57, drops the pulse to 70 BPM, exactly half the tempo that came before. A valley placed surprisingly early, almost a warning that this will not be a straight line.
From there the selection moves in pairs. Commodore 69 holds the middle stretch with 'Imm 0' and 'Full Effect', both at 140 and both in A Minor on M4rlow: two variations on one obsession, built to be chained seamlessly. RNDMZR takes over on Klangtrauma with 'Time' and 'Work'; the latter, at 5:05 the shortest cut of the ten, quickens the pace right before the turn ahead.
Because the turn does come, at stop eight. 'Granite Skin' drops to 133 BPM and plays in a different league: it is the piece Rene Wise —UK-born, Lisbon-based— released in April on Dekmantel's UFO series, a deep, rolling groove built for long stretches in the mix. That MaKabre places it here, and not earlier, says plenty: the tempo drop is not a comedown but a widening of space. Fin Cormack's 'Undulate' bounces back to 141 for one last push on Groove Protocol, and Mython's 'Shake' closes back at 133 on Molekül, mirroring Rene Wise's tempo.
Heard front to back, the chart is a portrait of how MaKabre reads a session: a sustained hypnotic plateau between 140 and 142, one early breather and an exit in descent, with no final climax. Energy here is not accumulated; it is rationed.
Sources: Beatport · Bandcamp · Beatportal
