Traversable Wormhole - Traversable Wormhole Vol 01-05

It’s definitely a gamble for an established label to allocate most of its resources to a project that’s led by one single artist for half a year. In order to succeed, the productions have to be creative and compelling enough to attract listeners installment after installment continuously. So what has made Chris Liebing, owner of the CLR imprint, have such faith in Berlin-based producer Adam X?  

Those into techno should know that the 10 original mixes featured on this album were originally released exclusively in vinyl in 2009 by the 20-year veteran under the name of Traversable Wormhole as an anonymous project, which caused quite a stir in the techno scene at that time. Whereas the previous anonymity does make the digital re-release now on CLR more intriguing, at the end of the day what really matters is the music itself.  

Indeed this year we’ve heard so many good dark techno tracks, but the sound of TW is distinctly outstanding: stripped yet powerful, spacey yet organic, and retro yet cutting edge, there’s so much depth in Mr X’s music. And with the 68-minute mix (composed of the aforementioned originals) included on this digital album version, the scope of his productions also becomes clear; whether you like the suspenseful pulsating bass of the opener Tachyon, or the hauntingly resonant melodies of Where 2D Meets 3D and Closed Time Like Curve, or the dubsteppy, hammering beats of Exiting The Milkyway and Spacetime Symmetries, it’s obvious that the tracks in the TW series are able to fit into different places of a deep tech set in some other-worldly style.

Besides the refined production skills of TW, another essential component of this series from CLR is undoubtedly the remixes. Of course, when you were able to get the remix treatment done by such a list of prominent and promising producers in the scene such as Marcel Dettmann, Function, James Ruskin, Surgeon, Kevin Gorman, Sleeparchive, Tommy For Seven, and Liebing himself etc, you could hardly go wrong. Thanks to their quality contribution a great deal of exciting variety is injected into the series, and it’s vividly illustrated on the 72-minute mix by the label boss. 

From the fierce industrial percussion on Liebing’s remake of Superliminal and Tommy Four Seven’s version of Spacetime Symmetries to the floor-shaking, cascading bass on Dettmann’s rework of Closed Time Like Curve and the tripped-out soundscapes on Surgeon and Terence Fixmer’s remixes of Exiting The Milkyway and Exotic Matter respectively, the tracks are all mixed and programmed in a very tight and fluid manner - in terms of mixing, Liebing is really the winner here - and he even manages to make Sleeparchive’s retake on Superliminal (a very minimalist remix that’s almost solely driven by the beefy, constantly evolving bass) sit comfortably in the mix and pave the way for the deep yet driving final section (crafted with the brilliant remixes by Function, Peter Van Hoesen and Kevin Gorman), deftly illustrating his impressive ability as a DJ.   

With the stunning originals and the richly flavoured remixes in the form of an impeccably mixed sequence, not only is this release the culmination of the whole TW series, but it also reflects why the series itself is one of the most ambitious and inspiring projects in the techno scene this year. No doubt, focusing on such project could be quite risky, but Liebing has shown it was all worth it - he and Adam X are definitely two of the biggest winners of 2010 indeed.

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