Twenty-five years of Tsunami Records open with 'Residual Light by Giving Ground', and the choice is no accident: Giving Ground is Christian Wunsch alongside Function, and that 135 BPM start in D major sets the tone for what follows — sober peak time that trusts traction over fireworks. Wunsch, curator and protagonist of this TSU057, follows straight away with 'Controlled Collapse' on his own, one notch up, then hands over to Sabotak, whose 'Fracture' eases to 134 to keep the pressure on without repeating the trick. Three cuts, one block: the record starts already in full flight.
Then comes the landmark. MICROCORPS' 'Metrix Hex' is the longest cut of the lot (8:22) and collapses the tempo to 100 BPM: an industrial valley in D minor placed dead centre, one that forces you to listen rather than dance. The way out is cleverly staged: Broken English Club's remix of 'Tied to chairs' works as a 125 BPM ramp, and from there the record climbs back to its ceiling with 'Black Static', where Wunsch joins Regis — the pair already operate together as The Rare Breed — for the darkest moment of the trip: 136 BPM in B-flat minor.
'Dead Receiver', with Rumenige, holds the altitude at 134 before the descent, and 'Soft Ruins' — Wunsch with Arcanoid, the duo who record as Black Forests — turns the lights down at 85 BPM. Closing an anniversary record with soft ruins at half tempo says more than any press release: this is not a celebration that looks back, it is one that lets the dust settle.
The whole structure plays like a condensed set: immediate lift-off, plateau, sharp drop, recovery and landing. That nearly every alias on the record — Giving Ground, The Rare Breed, Black Forests — is Wunsch collaborating with Function, Regis and Arcanoid makes the journey more intimate: this is not a guest-list compilation but a map of the friendships that have carried the label for a quarter of a century.
Sources: Horizons Music