Drumcell – Sleep Complex

Constructed lovingly on analogue equipment (the TR-909, TR-808 and TB-303 all feature heavily), and with a final bass-oriented mixdown by Frankfurt-based techno wizard Chris Liebing, LA producer Moe Espinosa aka Drumcell’s debut album, following a string of EPs and 12” dating back to the early 2000s, is a thing of deceptively minimal and atmospheric beauty.

Heavily influenced by early Detroit techno and the cut-up live experiments of Jeff Mills, it also shares with Mills an admirably futurist conception of the form, with very little recourse to the simplistic, thudding four-to-the-floor patterns which dominate what passes for main-room techno these days. 

Acid-drenched basslines buzz and flutter like angry bees; treated kicks and snares stutter and pulse like the motorik heartbeat of a dystopian megacity. Bearing comparisons to Mills’ soundtrack work, it is compelling and atmospheric throughout, aimed as squarely at the brain as it is at the dancefloor.