matthew dear - asa breed (ghostly international)

listening the new album 'asa breed' by matthew dear is a real pleasure, probably and mostly because of the various styles that are successfully merged in the music on this release. it's a kind of music that can't be pigeonholed as only techno, because on 'asa breed' there are various influences and approaches to the music that are characteristic about many different genres and styles. the most obvious and very refreshing atmosphere on the album seems to be the resonating sense of a charming idm sensibility, that's present through the whole release. then there's the guitar sound in some of the tracks ('give me more', 'midnight lovers'), vocals and singing in all tracks, which inevitable associates to songwriting (sometimes even sounding like country music) and it's interesting that many of the tracks or songs on the album are done in a songwriting style, but still not in a classic way. think more - songwriting in techno style, often not sounding as techno at all. with 'asa breed' matthew dear offers a new perspective for techno music in general and for his own music, adding specific existential moments in the songs, which is another interesting moment and phenomenon, how a wide range of existential themes (characteristic usually about literature or other art) are finding their place even in some of the contemporary production of techno music. listening and comparing the previous release 'backstroke' with the new album, it's noticeable that now, coming out of the minimal-techno cliches, matthew dear likes to play more with the non-linear and not uniformed approaches to the songwriting inclined techno tracks, which is a good direction. it's interesting how on the layered and well thought out 'asa breed', matthew dear manages to bring in a lot of the songwriting sense in some of the techno and club oriented songs, which is well done in: 'neighborhoods', 'deserter', 'shy', 'don and sherri', 'pom pom'... (br)