RLGN Romantichrist EP

Rlgn joins forces with a series of collaborators on his new Romantichrist EP, on Macceo Plex’s Lone Romantics.

Russian innovator Rlgn has a rough and ready techno sound that has come on Boysnoize Records, Private Persons and Don't Recordings. He is part of the experimental wave of post-Soviet artists mixing up scruffy basement techno with acid-laced modern electronics. Here he works solo on two tracks as well as with frequent collaborator Locked Club - a fellow Russian electronic punk, Dummföund - a Middle Eastern melody master who does everything from disco edits to house, breaks and techno, and Stelmakh - a musician, pianist and composer from Russia.

The solo cut 'Olonkho' opens up with heavily filtered and guttural vocalisations looped over bristling breakbeats. It's a fizzing, caustic cut with snappy kicks and explosive hits that will blow up any dance floor. Rlgn & Locked Club then join forces for 'Betrunkener Hund' which is a grizzly and frosty mid-tempo techno cut. The synths are twisted, the mood dystopian and the atmosphere edgy.

Rlgn & Dummföund's 'Mahaut' spins out on more busted bass and visceral drum programming with Middle Eastern vocal wails adding a sense of tension to the machine madness. Rlgn & Stelmakh's 'Thriller' is a distorted and brain-frying mix of rusty synths and yelling vocals over urgent, broken techno drums and blizzard-like pads. Rlgn shuts down the EP with the second solo track 'Rain In Kyoto', a punchy electro-techno workout with busy synth modulations, lush bell melodies and turbocharged basslines.

These are five fierce and formidable techno fusions that take no prisoners.