Para One says it best: 'A perfect techno moment. A track I'd love to have done.' It starts low-key, with a tiny, decimated harpsichordion synth layered onto some machinic cruft, shards of white noise clipping and clicking, then the bassline bleeds in from the edges, delays widen the scope and the whole track swells up. Then a massive kick drops from ten feet high and a vast landscape comes into focus before being swallowed again by a huge liquid moon. Then there is this immense, cathartic breakdown. Sure, such maximalist techno shares some DNA with Border Community, but mostly because Holden, Fake & co. made it cool to sound sincere and engaged in big, unironic, all-engulfing feelings. 'Cathedrale' is unashamedly epic, it comes from the heart and speaks to the brain and feet simultaneously and we're damn proud of it. 'Weiss Gaz' is mostly electro, with shades of ghetto-tech, acid house accents, laser-guided snaps, a huge bassline revving like a V8, and bits of musique concrete. 'Vulcanice' was recorded in one take then barely edited, this call-and-response between two chords also sounds like worship music: it's focused, throbbing, it's slightly hypnotic, it's built around Hammond organ samples. But what kind of sick god can you celebrate with five minutes of dark, grimey flexout? A brusque revolving bass, little variation, small, local build-ups, no release, all tension. Oh, and those ambient sounds? A Vietnamese restaurant in Belleville, Paris, France.
