Tested Signal - Ribe (Nonplus Records)

Title: Tested Signal

Artist: Ribe

Label: Nonplus Records

Cat Number: NONPLUS054

Genre: Techno

1: Overture

2: Tested Signal

3: Fusion (With Boddika)

4: Variables

5: Variables (Shifted Remix)

6: Flux

7: Entropy

8: Vacuum

9: The Certainty Of Uncertain

10: Sub Rosa

11: Symmetry Axis

12: Rhetoric

13: Quantic Drone

14: Pulses

15: Prototype

Ribe, aka Alberto Pascual, has a discography stretching back a dozen years or so, but his alias Ribe, hasn’t been as prolific; notching up five releases since 2014. This album, his first in any guise, for Boddika’s Nonplus, is an accomplished collection of dense, analogue techno which, across its fourteen tracks, manages to deliver a concise summary of tonal machine funk which is as austere as it comes. Each track is a stripped-down, minimal missive, some of which sounds like it is being beamed from the outer reaches of the universe, while some feels more earthbound and physical. One such track is ‘The Certainty Of Uncertain’, which elevates melody above the pervasive, insistent drone of most of the rest of this album. In its vinyl form its only four tracks long, which leads me to think that although it's a competent enough collection, it's a compilation more than an album, and one that, over the course of its length, is a little bit wearing.