Minimal Violence

Minimal Violence – a pair of hardcore experimentalists from Vancouver – deliver a frenetic maelstrom of a mix.

Formed in their city’s DIY scene, the duo have been serving up slabs of weighty no-nonsense techno since 2016, with releases landing on Jungle Gym, Lobster Theremin and, lately, the Ninja Tune offshoot Technicolour.

Their tracks and mixes have often toyed with dystopian ideas and their forthcoming debut LP, InDreams, doubles down on an aesthetic of cyberpunk dissatisfaction, as does their entry into the Crack Mix series. You can tear it in the spoken word snippets sprinkled throughout; an appealingly dark future whispered of in the shadows.

Musically, it’s a feast of gothic club music, rolling through chunky acid, choppy techno and moments of trance-y hardcore. At one point we appear to be listening to someone playing donk tunes through a dodgy radio connection, before the fluttering keys of Lubomyr Melnyk’s reworking of Kiasmos’ Burnt bring us down softly at the mix’s culmination.

The duo tell us that the mix is a nod to “early Vancouver-based industrial acts with skinny puppy, download and cEvin Key’s Psychic TV remix.” In their words, this is “something to listen to at home on a weekday eve alongside tracks we would play at 4am at the club.”

InDreams is out on 26 April via Technicolour