Emptyset was born in 2005 when James 'Ginz' Ginzburg (30Hz, Joker collaborator, and co-founder of Tectonic Recordings) met art curator and DJ Paul Purgas (the man behind last year's excellent We Can Elude Control release) through Bristol's music scene.

 

The duo embarked on a production project to explore their musical commonalities, such as low frequencies, sound design and rhythm. The results — a nervous-sounding strain of minimal techno, fortified by bone-rattling subbass — first surfaced in 2007 with a pair of sought-after EPs for Future Days. A third EP appeared on Julian Smith's Caravan Recordings in 2008, paving the way for the label to release Emptyset's eponymously titled debut album last month.

 

Clocking in at just over 37 minutes, the album is a buzzing opus of lumbering rhythms, creeping distortion, bleeps, hums and warm bass tones. 'We wanted to create situations where the music came alive from its own side by finding the points within signal chains where distortion begins to form before it overpowers', they explain of the album in an interview over at Sonic Router.

 

This mix pulls together some of Emptyset's reference points, from the glitch-ridden electronics of Alva Noto and classic minimalism of Richie Hawtin's Plastikman material to emotive Aphex acid and the advanced techno/dubstep workouts of 2562.

 

Emptyset have a stack of projects lined up for 2010, including a series of live techno recordings made in a haunted house (!) — watch this space...