Best Of Techno - Vol. 4

01. Let Me Be Your Fantasy - Baby D
02. Tempestada Xvx Ii - Illuminate
03. Golden Girls - Kinetic
04. Roots 'n Future - Phuture Assassins
05. Paroles - Vinyl Countown
06. Devotion - Nookie
07. Mantra - C. J. Bolland
08. Weather Experience - The Prodigy
09. Tremora Del Terra Xvx - Illuminate
10. Total Ecstasy - EQ
11. The Piano - Mind Abuse
12. Transformation - Transform
Label: Profile

Review by Alex Henderson
If Vol. 4 of Profile's Best of Techno series was a study of jazz saxophonists, you would hear Grover Washington, Jr. next to Albert Ayler, Stan Getz after Anthony Braxton, and Gene Ammons before Roscoe Mitchell. In other words, this collection is all over the techno map and ranges from the most extreme techno to material that is fairly melodic and pop-influenced. Baby D's alluring "Let Me Be Your Fantasy," for example, is so close to dance-pop's mainstream that calling it techno is a stretch; the song offers real singing (not just a beat, a track, and scattered vocals) and is really house/dance-pop with techno overtones. Also fairly accessible is Golden Girls' futuristic "Kinetic." But those who fancy techno at its most hardcore will get into abrasive tunes like Illuminatae's "Tempestada XVX II" and Paroles' "Vinyl Countdown." Mind Abuse's "The Piano" combines techno with house, and this CD finds Profile's series exploring jungle (a style that's related to techno) with Phuture Assassins' "Roots 'N Future" and The Prodigy's "Weather Experience." To be sure, Vol. 4 isn't designed strictly for the techno purist -- its outlook is a broad one -- and the result is a fairly diverse study of techno and other club music that is related to it.