Altone / Gradient – Day Drama / Night Drama

There's a beautifully symmetrical aesthetic to the latest Lempuyang release that totally mirrors the impeccably positioned and delicately balanced sounds going on in the grooves. Two of the most consistent producers of the last few years - Altone and Gradient - produce creatively related tracks, the former named 'Day Drama' and the latter taking on 'Night Drama'. Then they hand their respective tracks over to each other for remixing duties and bingo, a pretty vital 12" is created, a gorgeous set of shimmering dubs on the A-side, and some heavyweight business for dark rainy nights on the flip. Both producers employ a modern day dub flavour to their minimal, moody techno, with it probably being fair to say that the influence of Maurizio and the Basic Channel label is fairly significant in the worlds of both. Altone's sound is a little grittier and seemingly fizzing with radioactivity, decaying and disintegrating as each offering proceeds, where there's something a bit more spartan and linear about Gradient's grooves, that seem to undulate and reverberate almost invisibly, propelling these exceptionally mixable, enjoyable DJ tools along almost under their own momentum. Nice work all round.