Tiga talks us through Audion’s audaciously good new album

Some artists keep things confined, while others are happier when they’re given a bit of breathing room, some space to creatively flap out. Matthew Dear falls in the latter camp. Whether he’s putting together another collection of delightfully warped electropop under his own name, or churning out some of the most raucously raw techno imaginable as Jabberjaw, he’s a producer not afraid to push things to the limits.

A case in point is his work as Audion. Audion records tend to take a quick loop, a snatch of an idea, and work it into the ground to devastatingly hypnotic effect. Tracks like Mouth To Mouth and Just Fucking were club anthems back in the glory days, before minimal became a dirty word.

Dear’s recently released the first full length Audion record and it’s an absolute fucking stormer. 'Alpha' is everything you could want from an unabashedly big room techno record, and tracks from it are currently smashing set after set in festivals and at clubs around the world.

If there’s one man’s opinion you’d trust on a new Audion album it’s Tiga’s right? Why? Because he’s Tiga, and you don’t really need any further explanation than that. So, without further ado, here’s what the Canadian electro-techno icon had to say about 'Alpha'.

Tiga: "Sometimes it feels like all the fun has been taken out of techno.

Serious? Yes. Emotional? Maybe. But fun? Rarely.

The original party spirit of techno – strangled by black scarves and buried under obscene asymmetrical t-shirts and triangular amulets. And where are the “hooks”? Not giant and exagerated break-downs. Not meaningless, generic English-as-third-language vocal lines….but actual techno hooks.

So, while it seems incredibly easy to churn out boring techno, or boring deep house, or boring deep house with stupid vocals, or ridiculously high energy tracks that leave you feeling genuinely embarrassed: where are the FUN and memorable techno anthems?

Enter AUDION.

The truth is that the instrumental techno anthem is the holy grail of dance music, and the reason they are so hard to come by is because they are so difficult to make.

To not hide behind mere utility, not cheating with words, but actually being memorable without any simple easy trick.

Plastic Dreams. Knights Of The Jaguar. Mouth To Mouth.

So rare I can name them…but I can't make them. But Matt can. That's why I’m writing this: because Matt is back.

Mathew Dear returns as AUDION to reintroduce the lost art of the Techno Party Jam.

'ALPHA': what came first. Energy. Power. Freedom. Fun.

A glorious return to powerful techno that won't bore you to death.

To high energy music that doesn’t go Spinal Tap.

That hallowed ground where fun is allowed to coexist with subtlety.

Respectable heavy metal techno you can live with.

Credible dancefloor weaponry.

Just when we needed it the most."

'Alpha' was released June 10th (buy).