Various – The Sixty EP

Whether you agree with me or not is your thing entirely, but from where I see the horizon, "V/A The Sixty EP" is the finest release on Planet Rhythm Records of the past decade. Damn, just scope the artist roster... I mean, the only things missing here to rate this release with a 7 out of a 5 are Oscar Mulero and Grovskopa, but that's being ungreatful.

To me, this release perfectly exemplifes hard techno of the new millenium, or at least what it should have become before it wandered off into some land of the lost scharnz territory. From off beat to straight up punishing and cerebral abstract electronics that'll have your eye balls tripping all over the club - it's all here.
Gunjack's Spanishtrap lands down so hard I'm embarassed to even write about it. The only kick drums I'm aware of that are as are those on Speedy J's Actor Nine and BMB's Father Loves Us. Exium kills it with a stray bullet, and ornaments it with a really eerie sequence.
Chrisitan Wunsch drops his typical harsh industrial approach and goes all out with a really 'leftfield' tune, complementing totally crazy sound effects and unapproachable, untamable percussion.

But those are only my favorite tracks. None of the other contributions fall far behind. If you're a fan of labels like Warm-Up, Tsunami, Rodz Konez and similar, you really need this. There is no strictly tool techno stuff here. Any one of these tracks will whip your forebrain with your own ribs in a club as much as they'll impress you at home. I am really impressed with the quality level here. All of the eight tracks make this more than worth having, but when you can't find any true flaw throughout, then you know this is one of those items which come around every once not so often.

My opinion is that sits up there with the best Planet Rhythm stuff. Maybe you won't agree upon first listen, but trust me, you need to hear this one front to back in order to form an opinion. There isn't one track on here which revolves around a 4x4 fifteen second loop and a load of filter sweeps and what not. In my book, and from a hard techno perspective, this is a 5/5, and not a decimal less.