ROBAG WRUHME Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Pampa offshoot Hart & Tief launched earlier in the year, via a split 12" featuring tracks by Soulphiction and Mike Denhert. This time round, fellow German producers DJ Koze and Robag Wruhme are at the controls. Koze kicks things off with "Driven", a clanking, booty-shaking fusion of metallic percussion hits, resonating electronics, dub techno motifs, and minimalist textures. It feels a little like a contemporary Berlin take on early '90s Sheffield "clonk" (think Sweet Exorcist's Clonk's Coming album on Warp), which is no bad thing in our book. Wruhme's "X-mop 198" is a much more straightforward, early morning techno bubbler, albeit with similarly clanking percussion hits amongst the thumping kick drums and restless, one-note riffs.

Review: Over a career stretching back almost two decades, Robag Wruhme has proved to be one of minimal house and techno's most unique producers, with a trademark sound that's become a byword for mind-altering, late-night quality. Fans of the Wruhme sound will love his latest outing on Kompakt extra. Our pick of the pair is driving A-side 'No', where mystical sounds, exotic percussion and sustained chords rise above a thrusting bassline and a rock-solid drum machine rhythm. By his standards it's quite "big", though that's not a criticism - 'No' genuinely sounds like a proper peak-time banger. B-side 'Frontex Freppant' is more in-keeping with his hazy, hypnotic sound of old, with stabbing electronics, looped aural textures and wonky electronics clustered around another tough, weighty techno groove.

Review: Although Robag Wruhme has appeared on the main Kompakt label a number of times over the last decade, this two-track 12" is actually his first appearance on the club-focused Kompakt Extra offshoot. As you'd expect from a producer with such a great track record, A-side "Yes" is superb. Built around swinging, off-kilter tech-house beats, hazy aural textures and a driving bassline, the track builds in waves thanks to Wruhme's canny use of moody pads, sustained - and undeniably creepy - chords and a wiggly acid line that intensifies as the track progresses. Over on the flip, "Calma Calma" is an altogether deeper and quietly sunny affair, with Wruhme wrapping female spoken word vocals, stirring orchestration and glassy-eyed melodies around another crunchy tech-house groove.

Review: Veteran German producer (and one half of Wighnomy Brothers) Robag Wruhme returns to Pampa Records with two delightful servings of his idiosyncratic sound. The glassy-eyed and bittersweet daydream fantasy of "Nata Alma" (Club Smash Hit version) features some right legends of the Norweigian jazz scene: Bugge Wesseltoft on piano accompanied by a heartfelt vocal performance by vocalist Sidsel Endresen. On the flip, "Venq Tolep" (Hit club version) is equal parts melancholic yet utterly evocative, and is the title track of his first album-length release on DJ Koze's label in eight years.