CONTROL is not a track – it’s an atmosphere.
A story about hidden systems, about the strings being pulled behind the curtain, about surrendering and resisting at the same time.

Driven by hypnotic kicks, layered with melancholic synths, this track creates a space that feels both dreamy and unsettling.

This is techno that doesn’t just make you move – it makes you feel.

Control

Break Beat Trance Trance

What You Need (feat. Chrystalli)

Erhan Kesen - Fogo

Endangered Records welcomes Avant to the label, with a 3-track EP of passionate & distinctive melodic techno.

After years of perfecting his craft in the studio, Avant makes his artist debut with the Empathic EP on Brian Cid’s Endangered label. Already a regular at famed clubs like Gewölbe and Reineke Fuchs in his hometown of Cologne, Germany, Avant’s driving rhythms and dynamic melodies are a perfect fit for the sound of Endangered.

“Spectral” is the first track of the EP and starts it off with a tribal beat, arpeggiated synth melody, and a tension building breakdown. The title track “Empathic” follows, and picks up the pace with a driving feel. A powerful melody is teased and built up throughout, with the full effect coming in after the drop. “Module” is the finale, and closes this chapter of Avant’s debut with a dark and groovy melodic chugger.

Avant describes his thoughts behind the EP and label: “I try to take the listener on a journey showcasing the different styles and facets which define my music. This ranges from my typical productions that consist of only a few elements and being very melodic & driving, to productions that include more drum and percussion elements which are more rare for me. I have been following Brian’s productions and his label activities for a long time. He attaches great importance to taking the listeners on a journey with his music, as well as with the releases selected for Endangered. This is something I try to reflect in all of my music and sets as well.”

Follow: @avant_ofc // @endangeredbk

Empathic EP

STREAM // BUY 🎧

Spectral (Original Mix)[ENDANGERED]

It’s taken @yotamavni a little while to get to his debut album; almost a decade, really, since his debut 12”, “That’s What The World Needs”, on California’s Seasons Limited imprint. During that time, the Tel-Aviv based producer has refined his productions, tightening the groove and paring everything back to bare essentials; the power in an Avni cut is its combination of piston-pulse propulsion and a deep, but gently applied, musicality. This combination gives his techno productions added heft on the dance floor, but also a lyrical sensibility that places him squarely in a tradition of techno legends who somehow manage to make the four-to-the-floor a space of poetic intensity, of rigorous joy.

Avni’s been on Kompakt’s radar for a while, first appearing on the label last year, with his Speicher contribution, “Mañana Mañana”. (“Track For Agoria”, from that EP, also appeared on Total 19.) The connection immediately made sense – dance music that managed to feel both lush and streamlined across the same great gasp of late-night energy. But with Yotam Avni Was Here, he’s taken a huge leap. After a brief intro, Avni sets his stall with “Beyond The Dance”, which features slow-moving vocal melisma over sculptural, melting tonalities, a tintinnabulating, harpsichord-like two-note phrase pacing out the track. Then “It Was What It Was” comes into view, its strip-light textures suddenly placed into sharp relief by a muted trumpet figure that hangs in the air, melancholy and pensive.

It’s no surprise, at this point, to discover that Avni’s inspirations for Was Here took in the histories of both techno and jazz. “I wanted to try something more around Detroit Techno meets ECM,” he reflects, when explaining the motivating forces behind the album. “Carl Craig’s Just Another Day EP and Kenny Larkin’s Keys, Strings, Tambourines came out during my high school years and had huge impact on me.” Avni’s also appeared on Transmat compilations, and remixed artists like the Midwest’s Titonton Duvanté, and Orlando Voorn – the latter particularly important for the way he connected the Detroit and Amsterdam techno scenes – his career path is marked by ongoing connections, direct and indirect, to Detroit’s storied history.

“I always wanted to go back to those hi-tek soul roots on a full album,” he continues, and he’s definitely exploring that terrain here, with the sky-strafing brass on “Free Darius Now”, morse-code keys on “Vortex” and glitchy, microhouse tickles of “Know Hope” all contributing to an oblique narrative that seems to arc across Was Here – one fleshed out by guest musicians, who include dop and Gerog Levin on vocals, and trumpets by Greg Paulus (of Beirut and No Regular Play). The cover art makes the jazz connection explicit, riffing on the text-based, minimal design of The Modern Jazz Quartet’s 1955 album for Prestige, Concorde. But the way Avni has gathered around him both inspiring musicians and intriguing reference points makes me think of his broader career as well, the collectivism behind his AVADON nights in Tel-Aviv, his many and wide-ranging releases on labels like Innervisions, Hotflush and Stroboscopic Artefacts, and the openness of his productions, which seem to be all about the multiple, the possibilities of cross-pollination, of fusing this with that, of adding and subtracting, all under the pulsating thumbprint of techno.

Good things, after all, are worth waiting for.

Buy/stream

Yotam Avni - Just Another Day Feat Dop Greg Paulus

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Yacine Dessouki x NDRK - Rythmica

Yacine Dessouki x NDRK - Dancers In The Dark

Yacine Dessouki x NDRK - Undergo

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Kate Zubok - IS IT WORTH IT? / “СТОИТ ЛИ?

As our reality becomes increasingly restrictive and challenging, it’s a crucial time to develop our consciousness and nurture internal positivity. In essence, the true source of peace and happiness lies inside us, so it’s important to make time to relax and find space to escape inwards. Our special bundle of Palo Santo sticks contains a selection of music designed to transport you away from the stresses of today’s world and into a place of transcendence.

Palo Santo (meaning Holy Wood) is a revered, scented stick obtained from the wood of the sacred South American tree. It is used in ceremo- ny and by spiritually-conscious people for the purpose of clearing bad energy from spaces and instilling a peaceful atmosphere.

On this compilation you’ll find ambient, calming productions that complement the soothing aroma of the wonderful Palo Santo sticks. So light one up, kick back and drift away into the ether...

Buy: bit.ly/tau-palo-santo

@soel-sadiki @ditian @canlovebesynth @echonomist @innellea @adanatwins @atelierrsa @ruede @mulyamusic @digitalism_official

TSE001 | Michele Di Martino - Oblio

Founded by Agoria in 2016.

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