I’ve wanted to feature a fairly full-on techno mix for a while, and a recent shit day pointed us towards this dark and occasionally menacing techno mix from Marcel Dettmann @ ENTER.

It is unlikely that you’ll need an introduction to Mr Dettmann – he is the most well-known DJ that we’ve featured so far. But we’ll give you one anyway.

Marcel Dettmann is more widely known for being one of the main DJs of Berghain, the revered institution in Berlin. But he also has his own record label – MDR, he used to be a resident at Ostgut, and used to work at Hard Wax – one of the more famous record stores in Berlin.

Definitely not forgetting he is an excellent producer too – tracks like Deluge are superb.

Also very well worth checking out are his album, Dettmann II, or the fabric mix – number 77 in the series.

Back to the point of the post, and the mix doesn’t take long to get into action, when the claps kick in on Street Works by Shlomi Aber, we knew that this was a likely winner.

There are a couple of moments that we were not too keen on – the Arnaud Le Texier remix of In Slow Motion does grind on the ears quite a bit for a track early in a mix, and the &Me Terrace Dub mix of Art Department’s Catch You By Surprise was surprisingly obvious – it hasn’t aged well in our ears.

This isn’t criticism, it is just two tracks we were not keen on in this context – the mix overall is a superb techno mix – often pulsating and energising, normally dark, occasionally surprising, and exceptionally delightful with ANBB’s I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground – we wondered if we would ever hear a DJ play that.

Not only techno – some acid house and a Chicago classic through in too. And the weirdness of the Mole track – a hairs on the back of your neck moment.

There is quite a lot of complexity to this mix, with a variety of directions and moods, but it was perfect to encapsulate the anger and negativity of the day that we discovered it – and now in a good mood, we just want to go for a stomp.

Listen and share to Marcel Dettmann @ ENTER.