Azimuth

Kenny Larkin's Azimuth gives Detroit techno room for tenderness and the machinery stays hard. Chords keep redirecting the emotional weight of the tracks, while the drums remain exact enough to stop that beauty turning decorative. Lyrical instead of revolutionary, and few Detroit records are this openly beautiful.

The second wave's most elegant melodist, and a reminder that this city produced beauty as often as force. Harmonic care that European techno spent years failing to imitate.