Chris Liebing x Luke Slater

When Chris Liebing and Luke Slater team up for an Awakenings New Year's set, you know you're in for something punishingly brilliant. This audio recording from 2023 is for the connoisseurs of industrial-strength electronics, the ones who think a BPM count starting with 14 is a reasonable way to greet January. Picture a cavernous hall at 4am, where the strobes are blinding and the bass feels like it's rearranging your internal organs. Technically, this is a beast: averaging 143 BPM and firmly rooted in the 12A key, it's a high-octane blend of hard techno and industrial influences.

The energy balance is more distributed than typical techno, with 45.2% mid and 30.9% high, indicating a focus on abrasive textures and clanging percussion over pure sub-bass. Their mixing is clinical and relentless, often layering tracks to create dense, cacophonous walls of sound, with harmonic shifts kept minimal to maintain a frenetic, unyielding pace. The tracklist is a treasure trove of classics and obscurities: they open with Planetary Assault Systems' 'In from the Night (Adam Beyer & Wehbba Remix)', a statement of industrial intent, then delve into the dubby depths of Vainqueur's 'Lyot (Maurizio Remix)' for a moment of hypnotic respite. The Southern's 'Memories' provides an epic, 13-minute journey into atmospheric techno, while Key4050's 'Paydirt' unleashes a torrent of frenzied arpeggios.

Of course, no set like this is complete without Jeff Mills' 'The Bells', dropped here as the ultimate peak-time crescendo. The journey starts with the industrial thump of 'In from the Night', peaks with the iconic terror of 'The Bells', and closes with the melodic release of Activa's 'Daydream'. A brutal, beautiful symphony for the dedicated.