Perc - Wicker & Steel | TPTLP003

Perc has offered up his full length Wicker & Steel for stream on his Soundcloud, and it's a doozy. Read our review and listen to it after the jump.


Perc, and by extension his label Perc Trax, has been developing a name for himself for the better part of 10 years now, thanks to his distinctive take on techno. Equal parts industrial and atmospheric with nods to Detroit and Birmingham, this sound has served him well, having released music with Drumcode, CLR, Stroboscopic Artefacts and Sleaze Recordings to name a few. Wicker & Steel is Perc's first full length release, and it does not disappoint.

Opener Choice is built around a heavily altered interview, floating in and out of focus, with ambient sounds and occasional muted notes in the background. The next two tracks are somewhat more familiar, with crunchy drum sounds and industrial ambience combining to set a dark tone, the syncopated drums of My Head Is Slowly Exploding lending more of a subtle feel before giving way to the steady kick and swirling synths of Chopping, a peak time stomper if ever I've heard one. You Saw Me reigns the album back a bit, with the snare and hi-hats gradually brought into the mix before the only breakdown, almost three quarters of the way through, starts the track over again. Pre-Steel shows us a bit more of Perc's ambient side, shifting tones and a rhythm that sounds oddly like train tracks providing the only "beat". It's a nice breather and a great tune, its placement showing us that this is an album, not just a collection of songs.

We are then thrust back into 4/4 techno with Gonkle, a pounding kick and sirens the trademark here, alongside some drum sounds that reminded me strangely of Shackleton's Death Is Not Final. London, we have you surrounded continues this theme, straight out techno for the floor. Snow Chain, the penultimate track takes a hard left, almost like dub techno but without the delay and recurring organ chords, stripped back drums and an understated bass line the order of the day. The closing track Jmurph is one last hurrah for the industrial, clanking metal and angular  coming together to send the album off with a bit of oomph.

I think this is a great release by a fantastic producer at the top of his game. It shows a couple of different sides to Perc that complement each other beautifully, and with a good mix of club and home listening I'd thoroughly recommend you pick this up when it becomes available next week (the 10th to be exact).

Perc - Wicker & Steel - full album stream by Perc