Bottom Forty’s fifth release and second vinyl press showcases two French producers living and banging the drums in Berlin; a long time Bottom Forty favorite, La Fraicheur, teamed up with veteran producer and Leonizer record label ownerLeonard de Leonard. La Fraicheur, a producer of emotional and story-telling minimal techno, is seen here paired with Leonard de Leonard to turn up the heat on our first club-banger release track, “Afraid of the Groove”. La Fraicheur and Leonard de Leonard beat the hell out of their analog Elektron to lay out a relentless whipping melody that demands a twirling dance floor while a classic minimal bass line, rhythm and “she’s uh-fraid of the groove” sample keep this track dark, dirty and underground. In a beautiful contrast to the heart-pounding A-side, flip to the B-side for “Une Place au Soleil”. Literally translated as “a place in the sun”, the saying is more about conveying the emotion of ‘your hard work is putting you in a good place in life’. “Une Place au Soleil” is a gorgeous deep house track filled with teasingly melodic stabs and subtle hardware sounds that come and go, crashing on the record like powerful but soothing waves on the hot beach sands. While “Afraid of the Groove” may twist a peak-hour dance floor into a frenzy, “Une Place au Soleil” will entrance them in the after hours, reminding dancers why electronic music is so beautiful and why dance floors can carry so much emotional release. Yet another contrasting track, the remix of “Afraid of the Groove” by the Milan based Elisa Bee, is what makes this record compact yet powerfully diverse for many dance floors. Entering the realm of ghetto-tech with pounding and distorted toms and kicks and fervent stabs, Elisa Bee’s remix is like a rollercoaster that keeps ascending, building tension upon tension as it rides further into the sky, taking everyone along for the ride with it.
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Berlin-based Doc Sleep's debut EP on Bottom Forty is a record that pulls no punches and plays no tricks; it is instead a sophisticated, gorgeous array of minimal techno inspired by the darkest of dance floors. Doc Sleep's ear for sound and rhythm set the tone for your moments of eyes-shut dancing, giving you the chance to hang onto every subtle but flawlessly executed fragment of noise. “First Solar” opens up with a contrasting blend of dark, rolling hills of bass and bright pads that quickly pick up a dangerous amount of momentum. The moment the track “Between” pounds its first kick, you can't help but be immediately sucked in by Doc Sleep’s ear for sophisticated, minimal, beautifully engineered sounds. Between is a track that stays on its groove while soft gorgeous pads pass over you like waves, it's the perfect time for patrons of a dingy basement dance floor to connect in the dark. Lastly, “Ampere” is a track that lays out a solid techno soundscape that is mixed up at the listeners surprise with heavily reverb’d snare hits and brooding sweeps. On the B side, two remixers bring Doc Sleep's EP into a different dimension. Bottom Forty label head Nark extracts the gorgeous pads and pulls them to the forefront of “Between”, starting with a long ethereal intro sure to stop and sway any dance floor before continuing into a grimy minimal 303 bass line as the subtle rubs to Doc Sleep's original sounds lend it an exasperated grinding element. The second remix from Bottom Forty artist Cid & Fancy takes “Ampere” into a place of rhythmic organized chaos with synth stabs that shoot off like metal sparks.
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