Raw Paper Records: VA - Best of Paperwork Vol.04 (CROATIA)

Discogs or other URL: https://www.discogs.com/label/792807-Raw-Paper-Records
Catalog number: RPR005
Year: 2016

Review: Never heard of Croatian label Raw Paper Records before. But this new comp is one of the best electronic house compilations I’ve heard in a long while. There’s a mix of house and tech house but very underground and very clubbable. For a label that’s only two years old and for whom this is only their fifth release, that’s quite something.

Turning to the current compilation, this opens with the fabulous Gluhol from Patrick Diskko. This is European techno, with a Detroit edge. All clean lines and motorik intent. Antoine Sy’s Melancolie is another corker. More synth than mechanics, this takes tech house to a new level.

Raw Head from Eddish takes the techno on a darker, tom tom turn. Drowning Satellite is more tech house techno, with odd synth stabs in mmmotion’s track. SXSN is a lovely bit of dark neo-ambient by Distorted Portrait.

Helione offer marching techno on Rumble, which sounds somewhat out of place here. Glockenspiel has space techno trance but seemingly no glockenspiel. FM_ offers multi-tempo techno of Damage.

Closer From The Dust is the more leftfield thing here, blending dub techno with IDM awkward sounds to give you beetles in corners. Lots of running around and bumping into things.