TZUSING Vinyl & CDs

Review: There's a delightfully celebratory feel about this debut volume of Cititrax Tracks, a new 12" series from Minimal Wave offshoot Cititrax. As beautifully presented as we've come to expect, Tracks Volume 1 boasts a quartet of dancefloor-ready smashers from a blend of new faces and label stalwarts. Amato (aka The Hacker) kicks things off with the glistening EBM funk of "Physique" - all restless synth refrains and pounding bottom end - before LIES affiliate Tsuzing go all dark, psychedelic and twisted on the thrillingly intense, acid-flecked "King of System". An-I go all DAF (with a touch of Front 242) on the fuzzy and dystopian stomper "Mutter", before Cititrax regulars Broken English Club delivers a storming chunk of industrial-tinged analogue funk ("Glass"). Bravo!

Review: Shanghai-based, Malaysian-born artist Tzusing offers us a future-facing and experimental techno record that also serves as a meditation on "China's complicated history of patriarchal heteronormativity, and how these archaic double standards continue to dominate the culture in pervasive, often invisible ways." It is packed with dancefloor highlights after a deep-thinking cultural monologue to start with. Hard and funky drums, twisted sonics, manic uptempo bangers and wheezing voices and downtempo rhythms all combine into something utterly unique.

Review: Cititrax's first Tracks 12" sampler did a good job in showcasing material from some of the Brooklyn-based label's favourite contemporary producers. This follow-up, arriving only a few short months after the first, aims to do the same. Returning for his second appearance, Tsuzing kicks things off with the razor-sharp shuffle of "Nonlinear War", whose intoxicating electronics and wild synth lines recall Brown Album-era Orbital, before London-based L/F/D/M takes a trip into bleak techno territory with the acid-laden "Mouth Holes". Flip for Silent Servant's deliciously grandiose, muscular electro-disco workout "The Touch", and the clanking industrial percussion, EBM attitude and humming electro beats of Maelstrom's "Lithium".