Kushti

The first G-Man album, Kushti, had Gez Varley applying to techno the restraint and minimalism he’d learned from his time as one half of bleep pioneers LFO. Minimal techno often feels streamlined, but at its best, it’s lethal – something about it mugs you from behind, and before you know it, you’re in thrall to its endless, hypnotic simplicity. By assembling Kushti as a mix, Varley doesn’t let go for a second; making the constituent tracks available in unmixed form via Bandcamp, decades later, renews appreciation of just how potent this material is. It’s up there with Robert Hood’s Minimal Nation and Internal Empire as a masterclass in minimal techno, and with “Quo Vadis”, Varley essayed one of British techno’s all-time classics, where textures like flickering lights and crinkling cellophane tickle your skin as an unrelenting piston-pump beat pulses your bloodstream.