(Spectral Sound/Creative Vibes)

Detroit native Matthew Dear’s profile has grown steadily in recent years, to the point where he’s easily one of the most feted and respected figures currently operating amongst the US techno scene, thanks to a prolific stream of work under an ever-growing range of aliases. While Dear’s most recent 2003 album under his birth name ‘Leave Luck To Heaven’ ventured out towards delicate electronic pop, this debut full-length album under his latest pseudonym Audion on Ghostly International’s sister label Spectral Sounds in many senses represents its polar opposite, with track titles such as ‘Titty Fuck’ and ‘Just Fucking’ dropping hints as to the kinds of carnal and aggressively visceral heavy techno terrain being explored within. In many senses Audion appears to represent the furious and oversexed counterpoint to Dear’s intricate and primarily cerebral output under his own name, but while ‘Suckfish’ certainly comes loaded with serious dancefloor muscle (as the considerable success of previous 12”s ‘The Pong’ and ‘Kisses’ – also included here, has illustrated), there’s certainly still all the hallmarks of Dear’s established attention to tiny detail packed in here alongside the heavy mechanical rhythms and dark saw-tooth synthlines.

Opening track ‘Vegetables’ provides the perfect introduction to the sorts of darkly robotic techno territory being explored within, with dark gritty bass synth stabs giving way to an undulating framework of shuffling techno rhythms and cycling sonar-like bleeps, shortly before the bass locks in and takes the entire track spinning straight out into Kompakt territory, some diseased-sounding Yello-esque synthetic brass burbles peeking their heads out at the edges as the dark bass synths grind and seethe. ‘Your Place Or Mine’ meanwhile places pneumatically-hissing tech house beats beneath a flickering backdrop of broken synth tones and buzzing pads while vast reverbed-out laser-gun style zaps stretch out towards the distant horizon in one of this record’s many highlight moments, while the sexually-centred ‘Titty Fuck’ gears things towards blipping electro-infused synth arpeggios and lithe, crisp tech-house snares as grinding contorted rhythms corkscrew their way around distorted vocal snippets and just the barest ghostly hint of Detroit-tinged funk.

‘Kisses’ gets furious and distorted, with chaotic rave-esque synth stabs and squealing electronic mayhem powering its way over a streamlined backbone of clicking 808-laden Detroit techno rhythms in a moment that definitely tips its hat towards early hardcore, simultaneously balancing a intricate production approach with sheer full-on techno assault, before the spacious ‘Weild’ provides some downbeat respite from the more furious techno terrain primarily being explored on this record, with eerie disembodied-sounding vocoder-treated samples floating through an ebbing backdrop of deep synthetic bass pads and clicking stripped-down rhythms that calls to mind some meeting point between Pole and Rhythm & Sound.

The aptly-named ‘Taut’ provides one of the most main-room centred expansive moments amongst the tracklisting, with richocheting digitally-processed buzzes making their way beneath ghostly dubbed-out traces of processed vocal elements and a glittering electro-house undercarriage of clipped rhythms and squelching analogue bass, while the dark ‘Uvular’ places a relentlessly-tumbling backing of assembly-line style industrial techno rhythms beneath a retro-sounding synth arpeggio that manages to remain on the good side of cheesy as scary-as-hell distant screams filter their way out of the background around looped samples of what sounds like an MC repeatedly going “huh” – throw in some oddly treated voice samples and you’re well on the way to nightmare city. Finally, already tried-and-tested 12” single ‘Just Fucking’ takes this album to a close with one of its most serrated offerings, a mutant buzzing synth bassline that resembles a busted vacuum cleaner clearing a pathway of devastation around glittering analogue electro synth sequences, acid tinged 303 squeals and punching distorted techno rhythms.

‘Suckfish’ not only represents the more groin-focused, lascivious and visceral counterpoint to the more ‘listening-oriented’ approach to Matthew Dear’s most recent 2003 offering under his own name, it also collects together what’s easily some of his strongest work yet, amongst an ever-prodigious output. Tilting its hat to some classic moments spawned in the Motor City whilst also ripping up the template with a jackbooted foot, ‘Suckfish’ satisfies the buzzing appetite generated by the string of stellar Audion 12”s that preceded its arrival perfectly. Fans of the likes of Alter Ego and Motor’s serrated synthetic stomp should most definitely check this out – for my money, it’s going down as my fave tech record of 2005 – hands down.

Check out http://www.spectralsound.com and http://www.ghostly.com.