Twenty-five tracks and only one dares to drop below 124 BPM. 'Parafernalia' by Michael Hunter is the anomaly holding this seventeenth volume together: nine and a quarter minutes at 97 BPM in E-flat minor, planted right at the album's midpoint. On a series billed as peak time, a cut like this works as a decompression chamber: two minutes longer than anything else on the tracklist and nearly thirty beats slower than the rest of the field. Half-speed techno that forces you to hear texture before impact.
The real move is what comes next. 'Estados Alterados' by Almma Lunna is the fastest cut on the whole record: 145 BPM in E minor, five minutes of acceleration with no anaesthetic. Jumping from 97 to 145 between consecutive tracks — 48 BPM in one stroke — is a contrast few DJs would program that raw, but heard in sequence it turns the album's midsection into its dramatic axis: the point where it becomes clear that vibrant here doesn't mean uniform.
On the melodic side, the strongest case for the record's double billing is 'Fading Memories' by Forteen: 6:52 at 128 BPM, also in E minor — the most repeated key on the tracklist, present in six cuts — and tied with Riolie's 'Sandragana' as the longest melodic title. It's the exact reverse of the first half's peak-time artillery: the same club pulse with a different intention, and proof that the melodic house & techno on this record isn't decorative.
All of it comes out of Nothing But, the compilations sublabel of LW Recordings — the label arm of British distributor Label Worx — based in Kingston upon Hull and running since 2014. Series formats tend to reward quantity over gesture, which is why it's striking that a seventeenth volume hides its best argument in a 97 BPM cut: behind the numbering, someone is actually choosing.
Sources: Labelsbase · LW Recordings
