Monika Kruse - Changes Of Perception (Terminal M)

Now if you've heard Tresher's Thousand Nights LP from earlier this year, that will give you an idea of what to expect, for this is pretty minimal techno clearly not designed to be listened to at 7am in the morning on the bus on your way in to work.

But then if you're interested in the album you'll know that anyway, so best to put Kruse on in the peak early hours and see what happens then. To be honest, on first track Alo, that's not an awful lot, apart from a rising and falling figure that sounds like a wobble board, and what I thought initially were signs of a vocal line emerging were in fact Kruse on a voiceover speaking out against internet piracy.

Minimal, it turns out, is the watchword for this kind of techno music, which means when it's done well the dark, brooding sound world is one worth travelling through. When there's not a great deal of source material - Alo again - things aren't nearly so immediate.

Happily that doesn't set an overriding theme for the album, as elsewhere Kruse comes up with tracks that have a lot more of an edge. The title track is one of these, with a bass line that starts to cut deep. Fragile is just that, a fulsome bass line concealing some rather more brittle inner workings. Meanwhile Morgana, easily the best track on the album, introduces more of an impressive melodic strand, its beat that skipping infectiously through to the central trump card, a breakdown featuring Colombian singer Toto la Mompensina.

Unfortunately too often, despite the well planned and executed brand of Germanic techno here, I longed for something a bit less ordered and more distinctive to be added to the blend, particularly early in the album. It's all very well having a four beat bass loop with various bits of electronic chatter going on around, but if none of these develop with a great deal of momentum the impact is lost.

Best, then, to use this as bassy background music at home if you're going to listen outside a club at all. Indoors and underground it's likely to be a different story, the kick drum meaty enough to keep things pumping while the inner registers make more impact. Even then, the music could leave you somewhat cold - Morgana excepted.

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