Thirteen EPs and several VA’s make up the story of Marcel Fengler’s IMF label, and the music continues to go from strength to strength. The latest addition to the release catalogue may be one of the strongest to date, featuring a generous number of individual inputs inside a six-track EP. Delivering the goods this time, Stuttgart-based Rove Ranger serves up two sublime stompers, with enigmatic London local The Advent serving up a thumping remix for the first half of this split release. Madrid’s Rodiaz supplies another duo of weighty originals on the second side, backed up by legendary Scottish techno titans Slam.
Rove Ranger’s ‘Workout’ opens proceedings energetically, revolving around a rolling acid bassline, swirling tonal percussion, offbeat licks, catchy vocal chops and crisp, driven hat grooves to churn out an impressive opening track before The Advent puts his own deeper, darker spin on it, pulling the original track around through a series of envelopes and creative modulations, giving it an entirely different persona. Rove Ranger closes off his side of the release with the breakbeat-laced sounds of ‘Unforgotten’, implementing endless audio width alongside pensive chords, thumping industrial grooves and hollowed-out sub-bass.
Rodiaz kicks the second half of the EP off with a bang, coming in brutal and fast on ‘Space Methods’ through an array of thudding drum grooves and rattling percussive toppers to for man unconventionally gripping beat structure – subtly accented with minimal melodic components to add endless character to this peak-time bomb. Slam follows up with an archetypally hard-hitting rendition, firing off a relentless assault of weighty kicks, rattling hat grooves and coarse industrial fills, leaving very little room for a breather throughout this tirade of hair-raising tenacity before Rodiaz distils the EP into a close with the groove-focused
‘Output Methods’, playing on detuned tonal elements alongside tribal-infused percussion and eerie pads from start to finish.