Various Artists - Dreamy Harbor

Pitchfork 72

When Dimitri Hegemann set up an art space in the vaults under the Wertheim department store in East Berlin in the spring of 1991, it seemed unlikely that it would last out the initial three-month lease. But the club Tresor became a vital point on the Detroit-Berlin axis in the early ’90s, its lease was extended, and the underground club became a conduit that brought the first practitioners of techno over to Europe, introducing the likes of Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, and more to the continent, which in turn helped it become a worldwide force. The club has always been a more vital catalyst than the label of the same name, established the same year. But its heaviest releases—Robert Hood’s Internal Empire, Surgeon’s Basictonalvocabulary, Drexciya’s Harnessed the Storm, X-102’s Discovers The Rings Of Saturn, for starters—have maintained its international status.

While perhaps no longer at the cutting edge, twenty-five years in Tresor continues to stay relevant, tapping newcomers like Objekt and providing a home for the likes of Detroit’s Terrence Dixon. To help celebrate, the label presents Dreamy Harbor, a twelve-track assortment of older artists that helped establish the label, a few newcomers from the far corners of the globe, as well as a legendary composer not previously associated with the label. Veering from woozy ambience to clanging techno and back, it shows the label to be in a transitional space of sorts.

One of the first surprises is the opening track, Vainquer’s now-legendary “Solanus (Extracted 2).” Originally a B-side on the Chain Reaction label, it’s one of the defining beatless dubs to drift out in the mid-90s. It’s a bit difficult to tell just how much has been tweaked on this version from the original. Those chords that mimic exhalations from the void; that sense of serenity cut with the prickly buzz of cicadas—it remains intact here, save that its ethereal nod now lasts a precious three minutes longer.

It segues into a track from newcomer Shao, who released his first single on Tresor in 2015. Shao’s “Sensi (edit)” fidgets and slowly ratchets up a sense of dread on the track, but at times it feels like an echo of the old Tresor sound. Donato Dozzy, a longtime master of such chasm-like techno in Italy, also recalls that type of sound but with more nuanced results. Where the set fares best is in breaking from the merciless sound of techno and having its artists worm into the spaces between the beats. Recent signee Marcelus lets live, loose-metered drums skitter beneath the floorboards of the haunting “Odawah Jam.” Newcomer Claudia Anderson gives “Phase” a buoyant stutter step, and Terrence Dixon slips in some saxophone breaths and a beat that seems to just gathering loose marimba tone bars together like firewood.

It’s the shortest track on the comp, but the haunting voices that float across the spine-tingling keys of “Direction Asymmetry,” from Gerald Donald’s post-Drexciya project, Daughter Produkt, might be the most affecting, sure to pique Drexicya fans wondering what’s to come. Most curious is the inclusion of fourth-world composer (and Brian Eno compatriot) Jon Hassell to the mix. Recently, Hassell’s groundbreaking work has been getting a long overdue reassessment, and more and more new artists are drawing on his reimagining (and inverting) of indigenous and ambient sounds for their own work. Hassell’s piece is the odd one out here, but its flickering electronics and gorgeous piano and trumpet twinkle like lights on the far shore. Hopefully it hints at more work from Hassell to see light on the label in the near future. Dreamy Harbor might not be as handy or invigorating a comp as some of Tresor’s mid-90s sets, but it’s that rare release on the imprint that finds greater effect coming from the dreamier side of its telltale sound.