Techno didn’t exist when the great Frank Zappa famously remarked that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture”, but this more than any other musical style forces us to confont that truism. I’ve been trying to write about techno records for a fairly long while, and have come to the conclusion that this endeavour is, more or less, practically futile. You either get it or you don’t. Barcelona’s hitherto relatively unknown duo of Surit & Samot certainly do, and they’ve started the Nexe Records label to seek out the rest of us.
Pulsating, hard, stripped down and raw, their opening triptych for the label showcases the brand of techno that even 3 years ago people had all but forgotten, or rather, had given up making. All 3 tracks seem to have been cut from the same session, sharing the same overdriven & filtered chords, parsimonius 909 percussion and uncomplicated arrangements, with only the second eschewing the 4/4 in favour of the currently de rigeur broken kick drum, but all are devastatingly effective and hypnotic in equal measure. Limited to 200 white vinyl, get a copy before they’re all gone.