Following the debut of Marcel Fengler’s lauded artist album, Fokus, as well as the contemporary dance production, Masse, the Berlin-based techno imprint Ostgut Ton has a couple tricks up their sleeve for September.

Techno heavyweight Marcel Dettmann has prepared his second artist album, Dettmann II, which flows from ambient and experimental sonic textures to the hard, twisted techno he’s known for. Dettmann II may at first appear to have a lighter touch than his debut self-titled album, but not without his distinctive footprint, even in collaborative tracks such as “Outback” with Levon Vincent, “Seduction” with Emika, and “Aim” with Rene Pawlowitz. Whether or not this album will succeed in pushing beyond the popularity of the Berghain mainstays club-fare appropriated singles and EPs of the past few years is up in the air until it’s released September 16.

Following Dettmann II, Ostgut Ton will release a compilation as a successor to its fifth-anniversary album Fünf on September 30. Just as Fünf acted as an exercise for producers to create left-field tracks centered on field recordings taken from within Berghain, the concept behind Various is for the producers to explore the terrain beyond the parameters they’ve set for themselves as artists. What results is a contemplative narrative of minimal and dub techno with skittering percussion, thick sub bass, and lush ambient soundscapes. Featuring works from Barker & Baumecker, a collaboration between Efdemin and Marcel Fengler as DIN, Rolando, and Virginia, Various stands as an example of Ostgut Ton’s development over the years and offers a glimpse of their curatorial prowess as a leading tastemaker in the techno capital.

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