The Field – From Here We Go Sublime
2007
When I encountered From Here We Go Sublime over ten years ago, I could barely conjure words to describe what I was hearing. He used samples in a way I’d never recognized before, built them into a techno sound I was scrambling to take in as much as I could. It was so blinding fresh I became an instant lifelong fan, diving back again and again to these propulsive, light-footed minimal dub sounds, always leaning in closer to get a better look at the microtonal detail of it all. I wrote about this album back in the first year of this website, and I stand by my words: Pure, ecstatic, sustained immediacy. This album hits your aural pleasure centers with laser precision from the first moment until the final echo wash. Using clipped, compressed, shifted, exploded and otherwise modified samples to not only transmit a distinctly amorphous energy, but construct the beats – with each set feeling like micro-worlds unto themselves, tiny galaxies streaming by at high speed.
This is where the very molecules of dub techno were refashioned into some kind of musical rail gun and shot across the world from Berlin to America and all the way back around. It’s simultaneously super approachable and weirdly experimental. Everything great about the genre is on display here, reshaped and compressed into staccato pulses in a melodic rush.
• • •
Shed – Shedding the Past
2008
Shed’s debut album arrived with a statement of purpose tucked into its very fabric, a crackling radio transmission message from the artist himself, floating between beats. As one song transitions into another, we hear in thick German accent, “calling it Shedding the Past seemed to be a mere paradox. It feels so much the emotion, the feeling of the intensity and purity of club and rave in the early days, without resembling those gone moments. Rather, it creates a new verdant moment in us.” As Shed, aka René Pawlowitz, winds up, he arrives at the grand three words, spaced for maximum impact: True. Techno. Music. Then, the biggest beat on the album slams into the listener at speed, and it’s appropriately called “That Beats Everything!” This moment perfectly captures the essence of what’s happening here and across all great genre albums this far into the game, taking the familiar clothes of dub techno and fashioning a radically new outfit from them. Techno’s inherent limitations give rise to profound new sounds in the right hands.
His sense of humor and playfulness help leaven the tone on what is a very serious, often sharp-edged production. This is deep, dubby techno for lovers of the genre, but at the same time, its often off-kilter sense of rhythm and soft synth tones extend a hand to those standing outside, wondering what all the fuss is about. In its mixture of accessibility and deep-dive structure, this album is the best gateway between the past and the future, between a legacy like Chain Reaction and, say, the latest dispatches from Northern Electronics, a label we’ll get to by the end of this list. Beyond its status as an essential listen, this is just a massively enjoyable album, ready to loop and reveal fresh details again and again.
• • •
Yagya – Rigning
2009
This album exemplifies techno at its moodiest and most emotionally sweeping. “Rigning” is the Icelandic word for rain, which is incredibly pertinent for Yagya here. Not only is the entire album saturated in the sounds of actual rainfall; the music itself cascades over the listener like a warm summer downpour. It’s the kind of storm you’d never mind getting caught in, all cozy ambient pads and subsumed sub bass textures washing over the mind and body, field recordings of streets and forests and bugs filling in the sensory details. In its overall effect, the album could easily be taken for ambient music, so uniformly soothing and continuous are its ten lush tracks. But the earth shaking bass simmering below ensures its status as a dub techno masterpiece and Yagya’s best album.
• • •
Deepchord Presents Echospace – Liumin
2010
Liumin is, put simply, one of the greatest albums of any genre ever made. It’s a literally perfect album, an unending rollercoaster of sublime rhythm and sumptuous texture. It is a monolith of beauty and restraint, sculpting a living, breathing cyberpunk dream metropolis from a minimal set of building blocks. Like any good dream, it’s a seamless experience from end to end: opening in a warm drone pool, flowing like a river into light beat constructions, billowing into more hard-charging sequences, then gradually trickling down to end in a familiar ambient stillness. The entire thing is set into a landscape of field recordings, with the sound of Tokyo’s streets, subways, and citizens cropping up throughout the mix. When Rod Modell teamed up with Stephen Hitchell for a second full length release, they blasted far beyond the icy Chain Reaction worship of their first endeavor. Liumin absolutely nails a certain type of crystalline neon-soaked atmosphere that the best Detroit techno aspires to, a feeling I cannot ever get enough of. It’s built with the minimalist structure of Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians, adding new sounds layer by layer, shoring up the load-bearing pieces with new facets of bass, tiny filigreed details, more field recordings of Tokyo humming to life in the background, cutting through in quiet moments, granting a sense of lived-in comfort to the proceeding. By the time this set crests with “BCN Dub” – busted radio transmission drive-bys panning through the stereo as the sub-bass towers overhead – I’m floating far above my surroundings, every single time.
The artists left a small but potent bit of description on the jewel case itself: Contains mystical vibroacoustic-phenomena culled from the aether above Tokyo. Disc two contains an atmospheric distillation of sonic-elements extracted from Liumin disc one. That’s right, there’s a whole minimalist second disc of music here, stripping away the beats and leaving only dream shards of synths and the field recordings the album itself was built upon. It’s a full length comedown from the ecstatic heights of the album itself, and it helps cement Liumin as one of the greatest dub techno releases ever made.
This is the only album also found on the 32 Best Ambient Albums Ever Made list. It’s just that transcendent.
• • •
Sandwell District – Feed Forward
2010
You can tell a genre is thriving when its big breakthroughs keep happening decades into its life. While Sandwell District as a discrete entity is now gone, its legacy is still spreading via the family of artists it corralled, including Silent Servant, Function, and Regis, all contributing to the masterful selection of tunes here. This is where dub techno’s dark streak coalesced into a startling new form: cinematic, menacing, powerful, ragged-edged, cloaked in shadow, Feed Forward seems to emerge from an ancient cave – like it’d been biding its time, growing in strength and waiting for the right moment to upend the entire techno world. And that it did.
Despite the inky countenance of this music, each track is bursting with life and love for the sound, with sumptuous, even warm details making sure everything feels good once we’ve been devoured and find ourselves inside the beast. Soothing ambient pads contrast with deep synth blasts out of a Christopher Nolan film. Crunchy high speed drum sounds ride over electromotive bass ripples. Mystical formless voices dissolve into muted explosions, harmonic mist spread over lengthy, atmospheric, yet ultimately very danceable tracks. I could go on and on but I’ll stop before embarrassing myself. The point is that this is such a singular statement of sound that nothing will be the same after experiencing it.
• • •
Deadbeat – Radio Rothko
2010
This is another one that kind of feels like cheating, just a little bit. Radio Rothko is a mix rather than an album or compilation of original material – but what an astonishing mix it is. Working as an extension of his own solo music, Deadbeat mines the dub techno genre as deeply as possible, weaving together pieces of foundational classics – Basic Channel’s Quadrant Dub makes for an early highlight – with its dark diaspora throbbing out there today. From Deepchord to Pendle Coven to genre-adjacent acts like Mikkel Metal and 2562, the sub bass pulse never lets up. Tied together with a selection of Deadbeat’s own brief pieces, Radio Rothko flows effortlessly as a dread-soaked yet dreamily relaxing continuous experience. True album or not, it’s an unequivocal genre showcase and standout album-length listen that cannot be missed. To my ears, it just barely edges out some Deadbeat original albums like Roots and Wire and Walls and Dimensions. I just feel like anyone encountering Radio Rothko out of the blue stands a better chance of getting really into dub techno. After all, this is a lovingly crafted mix of genre standouts by an actual genre standout. It’s full of love for the sound and confidence in bleeding through its edges.
• • •
Voices From The Lake – Voices From The Lake
2012
Voices From The Lake is an endless cascade of hypnotic loops, moving like stars across the sky, forming and breaking and reforming new constellations every few minutes in a continuous flow. It feels like the most naturalistic techno experience possible, as easy as breathing, as effortless as falling. But its construction was anything but effortless – this set was conjured through painstaking sound design and the careful placement of a thousand disparate elements, all interlocking like water molecules in a tsunami. The duo of Donato Dozzy and Neel finessed this material through live performances and meticulous studio work to the point that it feels like the product of some mystical forest, music borne from the earth itself.
This album joins a very short list of techno albums I’d consider to be narrative experiences, carrying the listener over a fully formed arc, conveying a wordless journey that will leave the audience changed forever. With its seamless delivery, every track blends together to form a massive interlocking flow of preternatural techno bliss. It’s subtle – more subtle than almost anything on this list when it comes to that trademark dub bass – which means its massive effect comes cumulatively, rather than up front. It must be listened to in full, because every element exists in perfect balance with every other. This is, in other words, pure Zen techno. Danceable, but contemplative; otherworldly yet tactile; propulsive and dreamy all at once. There is nothing like this album out there in the world, not even on this list. I still haven’t done the album justice, so just listen for yourself.
• • •
Andy Stott – Luxury Problems
2012
It takes all of ten seconds for “Numb,” the opening track on Andy Stott’s debut full length, to signify a giant leap from the damaged but straightforward dub techno he was known for. Siren vocals rip through silence, resonating like a Tibetan singing-bowl before a oceanic trench of low-end crunch erupts, crushing everything in a ten mile radius. It feels like a glass house shattering from the round up, each piece hanging in the air a little too long for gravity to be real. Luxury Problems is the dub techno album reimagined as crystalline post-apocalyptic earthquake soundtrack.
When we think of dub techno, we often think of a meditative experience, or at least a fluid one. Stott detonates that notion with a combination of industrial noise, atomic bomb bass, and soaring, mutated, and reshaped vocals from opera-trained vocalist Alison Skidmore. Many of these songs wind up like an old factory humming to life, before tipping on their side and steamrolling over the next several minutes in a sharp combination of the brutal and the fragile. The dynamics here are an audiophiles’ dream, while the songcraft and touch of humanity could draw in even those wary of the often hermetic nature of the genre. It sounds like nothing else, aside the following Andy Stott records – and even then, he was no longer working strictly in techno.
Optimistic Underground 
Thank you for this, sir. I’m going to get lost in some of these I’ve never heard of before. Just now experiencing the Micronism album, and it’s seriously RICH. Do you keep an active profile on any of the streaming platforms?
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I’m so glad that you’re finding new music to love here! That Micronism is an especially rare gem, I’m so thankful it was reissued. And yes – I use spotify a lot! I’m not sure how to link it here though – or you could find me by search?
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Thanks Dave! I think it’s pretty tough to find the right profiles on Spotify. I imagine your profile is probably under your real name (David James?), so probably pretty hard to search. I think you can copy your profile link though. Here’s mine: https://open.spotify.com/user/123432839?si=N9GsIPMnSEKlyUtDCynvfQ
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I’ll add you once I get on my computer! It’s so fun stalking other people’s listening.
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Okay, so maybe spotify is changed or I’m just being a dummy – I can’t see anywhere I can follow you on there! I know that it’s possible to follow non-facebook-friends so I’ll just reply with my profile link here and hopefully you can sort it out? I’d love to be able to link it on my site somewhere too. https://open.spotify.com/user/1224331589?si=XDWb6hGQR6ybLwGByEDEUw
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I’m a Spotify numbskull too. It might due to the fact that we’re not FB friends, and I connect to Spotify via FB. I just sent you a friend request, so if you don’t mind friending a total stranger, we can see if I’m right!
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Sure thing, I’ll accept once I’m on there today!
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Sorry but u need to check out lucidflow label they are really on the ball with dub techno and the production is on another level
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Great stuff Dave, this will have me immersed for some time; as even though I’ve heard of a good few of these, I have yet gotten around to checking them out. Of course, there’s stuff here that is totally new to me, so extra thanks for that.
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You’re very welcome, so glad you’re finding some good stuff to explore! I really wanted to showcase the full breadth of the genre, so I hope you hear something to enjoy in the weirder edges.
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I have to be honest I’m surprised that echospace presents the coldest season isn’t on your list as that is in my opinion a better album than liumin. Also echospace live in Detroit which is truly fantastic.
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That Live in Detroit album is phenomenal! And I absolutely love The Coldest Season, but I had to make a choice between the two and I just love Liumin a little more. Very tough trying to cut this list down to manageable size – I honestly could have added 3 or 4 more Modell albums alone! Thanks for the feedback.
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Great List!!
My fav that are not in the list are Fluxion:Vibrant Forms 2 , not 1. In movies it,s said that second parts are no good, but with vibrant forms 2 it doesn,t happen .Just amazing.
And From Deepchord, I recommend “everything” he made.I discover very late Deepchord works, and i prefer his solo works to the Echospace combo.He takes more risk when working alone.”20 Electrostatic Soundfieds” and “Hash-Bar loops” are probably my favs.
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I love these suggestions! I almost chose Vibrant Forms 2 – either one is perfect I think. As for Deepchord, I totally agree. He’s amazing! I might actually make a Rod Modell list to cover everything he’s made. I LOVE 20 Electrostatic Soundfields. Sommer might be my favorite overall, but his new one Auratones is up there too.
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Fairly new to this genre and really enjoyed the infectiously passionate focus you have and the level of description used to carve each album into an identifiable shape. So fun to read and even more interesting to imagine- thanks for the wordsmithery, new info and links!
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Thank you for the kind words! Sorry for the late reply, I’m just catching up on comments now. Happy that I was able to help you out with some new music!!
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U need to check out lucid flow label go on you tube and look for Nadja lind burning Man some proper dub techno on there plus everything is lucid flow big ass production
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As a list targeted at uninitiated listeners it’s very good and you obviously emphasize variety, which I appreciate, especially for a genre that can get very samey once you’ve heard enough. Even if some of the picks such as the DJ Python seem a little far-fetched (nothing against their quality, on the contrary, more their inclusion on a dub techno list). I admire your eloquent writing that conveys listening as a sensorial experience rather than a mere description of technical elements. To me echospace are the true heirs of Basic Channel/Chain Reaction, the ones who were able to incorporate their integral influence and take the sound to unimaginable new heights. You were content with including Liumin which is probably the epitome but Intrusion’s The Seduction Of Silence, Variant’s The Setting Sun, cv313’s Live and Dimensional Space are omissions that stand out. But the list is yours! (maybe a top50 in the future lol)
Also some lesser known albums worth digging. Let me know your thoughts if you listened to them already.
Kit Clayton – Nek Sanalet
Bluetrain – Version Blue
Exos – My Home Is Sonic
Sensual Physics – Offene Schleifen
Octex – Idei Lahesna
Sustainer – Cuántico
154 – Strike
Evan Marc + Steve Hillage – Dreamtime Submersible
Quantec – Unusual Signals
Arc Of Doves – Mille Plateaux
Inward Content – Inward Content
J.S.Zeiter – JSCD-01
Grad_U – Surface Variations
Unknown Artist – Knowone Black Box One
Purl – Stillpoint
Wanderwelle – Lost In A Sea Of Trees
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Thank you for the great feedback! I agree 100% that Deepchord and all the related projects are the true heirs of dub techno. I wanted to limit how many projects I included from a single artist and there were already 3 with Rod Modell, so unfortunately I had to leave a lot of great stuff off the list. I think we must have very similar tastes, because Seduction of Silence and especially cv313’s Dimensional Space are absolute favorites of mine too. I considered making the list longer, but now I’m thinking I might just do a Rod Modell overview post, detailing all of his connected works. For now though, I think I’ll add mention beneath Liumin of a handful of other must-hear releases of his; I’ve been thinking about doing this since I published, to be honest. It was tough leaving anything out!
As for your suggestions – I haven’t heard several of these, so I’m excited to check them out! I’m always on the lookout for new stuff. Thanks again!
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Thanks for this amazingly detailed journey into dub techno! I’ve only recently discovered the genre and have been chipping away at this list. You’ve created quite the guide; a perfect introduction for me!
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This just made my day! Exactly why I write about music like this. Thank you for letting me know. I hope you keep discovering greatness – and let me know if you want any further suggestions! I’m in the process of rolling out an updated list with more “you should also check out…” type mentions beneath some of the big important albums. So much more to explore, always.
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Hello!
What a great list! Thank you for the thorough work ! :)
I guess we have similar tastes for dub techno too, the rare albums i didn’t know are instant favorites…
And you made me nostalgic for some i didn’t hear for quite too long.
I would love to read more genre list like that from you in the future, if you have the time :).
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Thank you for the kind words! So glad to know you’ve discovered some new favorites – that’s why I write. I’m definitely planning on making some more big genre lists like this, probably a couple more this year in fact. I’m working on a house right now but as soon as I’m done I’ll be back to writing!
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Enjoyable writing David. I’m revisiting all my old 12″ dub techno records. Lots of artists you mentioned are in the crates. I’m in my fifties now and most house and electronic genres bore me these days (maybe a hint of nostalgia at best, I was pretty deep into the scene more years ago than I care to remember). Not so with dub techno, I played all day during the hot summer, it’s still fresh and remains interesting. DubT stands the test of time beautifully afaic.
On your list I missed Coldest Season and Hashbar remnants and also the releases on Styrax Leaves, they have some brilliant stuff. No longer available on vinyl, most is on YT.
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I completely agree, absolutely timeless! Also, I definitely feel you on the Coldest Season and Hashbar Remnants. Rod Modell deserves a dozen mentions when it comes to dub techno – and I’m actually thinking about doing a feature on him and his many aliases and releases. I actually thought to expand this list a bit by mentioning other, similar releases to the ones mentioned, but when it came to Modell I realized I could make a whole list!
Also, I’m not sure I’m familiar with Styrax Leaves (or aware of it, if I am) so I’ll definitely search for anything I can find. You clearly know your stuff so I’m curious! Thanks for sharing, and thank you for the kind words!
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Yes this was fantastic but its cost me a fortune ,! Would love to see more lists
Everything ive bought from it has been exceptional
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Excellent list David, so many memories of early dub techno sound! I know its a recent release from 2018 but you must absolutely listen to Dub Surgeon – The Lost Future LP. I think it would make your list and it pretty much encompasses everything that is so great about contemporary dub techno. Its an obscure release from Jay Haze (engineered by Villalobos?) and issued on a UAE-based label called Ark to Ashes. Keep it up!
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Thank you so much for the recommendation! I hadn’t heard about this one at all, so I’l be listening asap. It’s always great to run into a fellow lover of the genre!
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Great job making this! In my opinion you missed a few and some records i may not see as dub techno but this is YOUR list and it is filled with great records! :D From the Echospace label i would have added Intrusion’s excellent album The Seduction of Silence. Keep it up!
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Thanks for the insight !
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Jesus christ, this list made me hate dub and the people that listen to it. I bet like 90% of these are from people you know and shill for because the quality of sound or musical merit sure as hell aint the thing why these songs are on the list. Fucking atrocious, maybe try broadening and moving forward with your music taste, staying still in some demo phase is a sing of getting stuck in childhood.
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I feel sorry for you. It’s got to be sad to have such tremendously limited knowledge of a genre yet be actively hostile toward the idea of learning more. If anything looks like a sign of being stuck in childhood, it’s leaving whiney, myopic comments like this.
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Nice list. Appreciate it. Voices from the Lake reigns supreme in my world.
Recommendations:
Toki Fuko – Spring Ray (Silent Season).
Alex Under – La Máquina de Bolas (Soma)
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Thank you! 100% agreed on VFTL. I haven’t heard either of those albums, so thanks for the recommendations as well!
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Oh gawd. Sorry for the redundant reply, but I’m going to have to underscore these suggestions. With the taste for patience, subtlety and depth your list shows, I was almost certain these were old news to you. You know that feeling when you hear something so good that just assume everyone knows about it? Enjoy and keep digging! Thanks again.
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No apologies necessary! I love having a recommendation so emphasized. It means something! Forgive my late reply, WordPress was broken last time I tried.
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Good list, even though a bit weaker towards the end.
Some of the notable omissions include Marko Fuerstenberg, legendary long-time resident DJ in Berlin’s Panorama Bar (in the Berghain). Check out his “Darkaudio Podcast” on Soundcloud, a live set – absolutely mind-blowing. Dub Techno doesn’t get any better than that.
Also, Luke Hess from Detroit should be on the list. His “Light in the Dark” release would be a good start. I’ll never forget the DJ set with Moritz von Oswald which I was privileged to witness.
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Thanks for the suggestions! I love Marko and almost had him on here. Haven’t heard that Hess album though.
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Thanks for your work! I´m always happy to read and hear something about dubtechno – in its best moments it shows the esthetic in monotonie and fills it with an evolving sound organism that lets you dive deeper and deeper. Quadrant dub is for sure the most iconic dubtechno track. I still need dubtechno for my mental health and love it since Basic channel. Just one listening tip to start the new year: Iori – magnetic
and my favourite mix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beJsidxDmtk&t=17s
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thanks for the tips and for the kind words!
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Thus list was so informative and has opened me up to months of my favorite kinds of sound.
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So glad to hear that!!
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Thank you.
Scarcely have I penned those two words with such depth of sincerity. Biokinetics and Las Vegas had me up half the night in a very cool daze.
Are you into ambient music? Would love to see you do a list ranking the great albums of Tim Hecker, Biosphere, Louigi Verona, Loscil, Arovane, and the like.
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