Italian electronic producer Giuseppe Scaccia originally started out producing hardcore techno as part of the groups Alarma Ravers and The Twins Artcore, before 2014 saw him launching his own solo project D-Leria, which saw him branching off in a considerably more stripped-back tribal techno direction.
In the years since, he’s developed a reputation for his hybrid DJ sets integrating turntables with drum machines, and also released a steady flow of 12” EP releases under his D-Leria alias on labels including Darknet and Gynoid Audio. ‘Driving To Nowhere’ offers up D-Leria’s debut album as well as the first longplayer release on Scaccia’s own Delirio label. For the most part, the ten tracks collected here veer towards lean and precisely engineered techno, but in this case they’re bookended by two ambient segues, with ‘Libero’ offering up an opening deep dive into hypnotic gauzy droning layers and the stray crackle of digital static.
From there though, ‘Ectoplasm’ throws things straight into the heart of the engine room as juddering bass sequences and pressurised hisses cling tightly to a pulsating undercarriage of 4/4 kickdrums, and as with many of the tracks here, the focus falls more on filtering and dropping elements in and out of the mix, rather than offering any real progressions on the track’s relentlessly surging grooves. ‘Invisible’ meanwhile gets more stripped-down and minimalist as eerie machine bleeps echo against muted kickdrums and spidery-sounding hi-hats, the entire track seeming to glide airlessly, in what’s easily one of the most impressive headphone trips here.
Elsewhere, ‘Running Against Time’ lays down the full tribal techno gauntlet as staccato layers of distorted snares play off a pounding backbone of 4/4 kickdrums and twisted synth stabs arc through the mix, before ‘Makumba’ offers up one of this album’s most intriguing dancefloor mutations, merging juddering filtered sub-bass and acid squelches as eerie coldwave drones build against echoing machine squeals and whirs, distantly thudding bass kicks lurking like ghosts at the bottom of the mix. An excellent debut album from D-Leria, ‘Driving To Nowhere’ also manages to be one of the strongest techno longplayers I’ve heard in a while.
