Whatever else you may think about him, Get Physical co-owner and former Groove magazine editor Thomas Koch is determinedly ‘old school’.

Behind the decks he is known for fashioning sets that are thoughtful collages of influences, past and present, while creating that kind of nagging, seductive groove that has you reaching for that most hackneyed of concepts: “DJ as storyteller”. But that’s what DJing was about, way back when, and DJ T. was there. Where his current peers often focus on the track or the sound, he has always been about stretching things a bit more, worried about the dancefloor experience as it winds its way through a night.

As producer he has also mined more retro-focused ideas and styles than labelmates like M.A.N.D.Y. or Booka Shade, first in collaboration with the latter and now with techno veteran Thomas Schumacher. Despite the longevity of all the GPM owners in the German scene, it is T. who most brings the early house, disco and techno aesthetic to his releases. On his first longplayer, 2005’s Boogie Playground, he wore these influences on the sleeve, infusing everything from Italo to acid into his collection.

No wonder from a man who immersed himself in Abba and Boney M as a child, became a breakdancer in the 80s and was there for the birth of house. About to turn 40 as this review is being written, T is delivering a birthday present for us all in the shape of his new album, The Inner Jukebox.

Reflecting the fact that things have moved on, the 80s tropes have been reined in and the flavour is distinctly of last century’s final decade. Sure the production is clean, crisp and spacious, as only today’s technology will allow. But the musical heritage is of a time when house and techno were breaking beyond their drum machine and sampler gestation into more organic approaches, even at their most stripped-back reaches.

Opening with a classic piece of dubby ambience in the title track, Koch rapidly moves into the realm of hard MAW dubs with Dis and Gorilla Hug. Then it’s mid-90s tribalism with drum loop and vocal sample based Bateria. Segueing into jazzified Chicagoesque deep house vibes with Mr. Piano Hands he then swerves through further ambience ( Lit From Within ) into the more tech-house oriented keyboard loops of Rituality. Finally, he fashions a denouement more in the style of funkified minimal techno in Switch (think Robert Hood with a splash of US house) and darker New York tribal vibes in To The Drum.

Don’t be misled: this is an album aimed more at the floor than the lounge, and needs to be judged on those merits. In that sense it is far more of a success than, for example, Josh Wink’s recent longplayer. There is more texture here, more subtlety. It’s a deeper sound and on repeated listens I found new wrinkles to appreciate. But its very nature means it is hard to judge the album as greater than the sum of its tracks, although the unifying aesthetic makes it more pleasing than many similar club-based projects. In that sense T is playing “producer as storyteller”, crafting the kind of hypnotic tale that latches onto your neurons and keeps your feet moving. Old school? Maybe. Old Hat? Not a chance.