n a continuation of his devotional celebration of the dance, Shed arrives on Dekmantel with Rave Echoes — a supple, mesmerising album of angular techno caught between the heat of peak time and the time-blurred hours after the club.

Few artists have nailed the intersection of the intellectual, emotional and physical in techno as evocatively as René Pawlowitz. For more than 20 years and across scores of aliases the Frankfurt/Oder-born, Berlin-based trailblazer has pushed a distinctive strain of machine music in thrall to the functional demands of motion without ever sacrificing subtlety, space, intrigue and expression. While his vast catalogue of work touches on many different moods and energies, on his Dekmantel debut Rave Echoes he shrouds eight forthright workouts in a blanket of misty melancholia to evoke the enchanting afterglow of the party.

"It's not nostalgic," Pawlowitz explains. "It's about that feeling that remains for a day, a week or even years after celebrating a rave. I still have that feeling for about 30 years now. This record tries to describe it."

The vaporous pads that soar over 'Password (Techno Mix)' certainly come charged with a bittersweet sentiment. Meanwhile the rhythmic locomotion comes on like the rumble of the first train back after leaving the club. The insistent bell loop up top rings out like the hook of the last track that rang out over the soundsystem. It's a sensation familiar to anyone who has spent their last drop of energy at the altar of dance, where exhaustion meets with satisfaction and disorientation as you recalibrate back into the real world.

This approach — dreamlike atmospherics and rugged propulsion — takes on many guises across Rave Echoes. It's submerged and restrained on 'Loot 25', speckled with sharply sliced breaks on 'Everybody' and scattered across a sparse, steppy soundscape on 'Rave Predator'. Emotive, swooning strings collide with tough, squashed breakstep drums on 'Double Scoop' and 'Taking You Home' thrusts with urgency even as Pawlowitz softens the spiky transients to make space for pure rave romanticism. There is even space for 'Rave Echoes' itself — the last groove before your eyes finally close, as the beat slows to a weighty trip hop roll and the ambience blooms out into a dense blanket across the frequency range.

Bursting with the nuanced production, rugged UK-school soundsystem pressure and Berlin-school techno momentum that makes him such a celebrated producer, on Rave Echoes Shed offers a perfect impression of those wild, indescribable sensory overloads that leave their mark on anyone devoted to the dancefloor. 

TRACKLIST:

A1. Loot 25

A2. Everybody

B1 . Rave Predator

B2. Password (Techno Mix)

C1. Double Scoop

C2. Password (Trance Mix)

D1. Taking You Home

D2. Rave Echoes