Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald Present Borderland

Transport

BY Daniel SylvesterPublished Apr 27, 2016

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In Germany, Moritz von Oswald's Basic Channel production team was as important to the identity of Berlin techno as Juan Atkins' Belleville Three was to the development of techno in Detroit. As both scenes healthily fed off of each other throughout the '90s, the genre of minimal techno was born, influencing a slew of artists from Aphex Twin to Richie Hawtin.
 
With the release of Transport, the two pioneers have reunited (they previously worked together on 1992's 3MB project) to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of German electronic label Tresor. That may be why Atkins and von Oswald seem rather content in revelling in the past, as much of the material on this seven-track LP comes off like archetypal instrumental techno. That's not a bad thing: on tracks like the cascading "Transport," pulsating "Lightyears" and breezy "Riod," the duo are still able to connect with the listener sonically, allowing durable rhythms, muffled beats and alien sounds to tightly coalesce and freely scatter, even though Atkins and von Oswald seem to be working off of the same structural blueprint for much of the album's 52-minute runtime.
 
Transport may be overly concerned with looking to the past, but honestly, you won't find two better-equipped historians than Atkins and von Oswald.
(Tresor)

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