The NeverEngine

The NeverEngine

Cristian Vogel [Tresor]

2 March, 2008 | 2.38PM

• Section: Music Recommendations
• Written by: Richard Brophy

UK producers Cristian Vogel and Neil Landstrumm brought stripped back techno into the most unusual places during the 1990s, but has their status been undermined by minimal’s new school?

Not really.

Landstrumm’s palette was always more wide-reaching, which meant that he put out one of 2007’s best albums, the bleep-bass techno meets dubstep — a fusion that’s been dubbed ‘ravestep’ — of ‘Restaurant of Assassins’.

Vogel has also returned to dancefloor techno after his work with Jamie Lidell as Super_Collider and some band based collaborations.

Thankfully, he hasn’t dispensed with his madcap approach.

However, this new album does represent a willingness to bring his love of raw analogue sounds, clunky drums and elastic percussive elements towards the modern dance floor.

‘Machine’ is Vogel’s most club-focused long player in over ten years.

The repetitive bleeps and harsh sounds of ‘Skx’ and ‘Saga’ recall techno’s pre-digital past but do so in a more laidback, less extreme, contemporary setting.

The switch on ‘Protochi’ from linear techno into shuffling 808s also signals that he’s not entirely comfortable to play it straight, which is exactly the kind of deviation that still marks him out as a maverick.

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