Derek Carr – The Digital Space Race (Psychonavigation)

Irish techno producer Derek Carr first started experimenting with a Casio sampler as a 14 year old, and for the last seven years or so, he’s been one of that aforementioned country’s best-kept secrets, releasing tracks on a variety of labels, including Digital Soul, Nice & Nasty and Headspace UK. In the wake of these 12″s, this debut album on Psychonavigation ‘The Digital Space Race’ offers up Carr’s first long-player, and sees him crafting eleven tracks of gorgeously deep classic techno in a decidedly similar vein to that of The Black Dog and early Carl Craig. In this particular instance, the lunar landing photos that adorn the sleeve art here provide the perfect visual counterpoint to tracks such as opener ‘Horizons’, with its smooth downbeat landscapes of lush, soulful synth pads punctuated by airy snare programming and the flicker of subtly-placed electro elements, before ‘Butterfly’ offers a deeply chilled wander down amidst looming bass pads, burbling melodic tones and crisp, echo-y handclaps that immediately calls to mind B12’s early techno explorations. The crisp ‘678’ meanwhile sees some funkier elements shifting towards the forefront as shimmering Detroit synths flicker around some vaguely Kraftwerkian bass pads and clicking 808 house rhythms, before ‘Sis’ ushers in majestic Balearic pads beneath rattling 4/4 snares in a gorgeous Italo-tinged slice of tech-house that carries more than a stray trace of mid-period New Order’s slowburning melancholia. One of the year’s most impressive techno revelations – on the evidence provided by ‘The Digital Space Race’, it sounds like we’ll be hearing a lot about Derek Carr in the near future.