Electronic Music
Archive series
Overview
2020-2024 Viral Electro Reset #10
Global lockdowns paused club culture, transforming tracks into lifelines. When dancefloors reopened, energy returned faster, harder, and hyper-connected-digital networks amplifying every beat.
The Club Reset saw breakbeats resurge, trance accelerate, and hyperpop collide with festival spectacle. From neo-trance anthems to melodic techno and viral house, this volume captures post-lockdown catharsis-its speed, discovery, and high-BPM momentum defining the sound of the moment.
Watch 22 essential Viral Electro Reset tracks. Use the "Watch" buttons to stream individual tracks, or play the complete playlist to experience all tracks in one session.
2020
"Industrial Ambient / Isolation Atmosphere"
Avery made this during the first UK lockdown in a flat with no studio - a laptop, a software synth, and field recordings from his local park. Lone Swordsman was the opening track of Together in Static, an album built entirely from isolation material. The industrial ambient weight comes from convolution reverb loaded with impulse responses of empty venue spaces Avery had played before the shutdown. Released on Phantasy Sound, it became the accidental document of dancefloor absence. - On "Together in Static"
2020
"HD-Bass / Kinetic-Techno / Poly-Rhythmic Reset"
William Burnett built this from a polyrhythmic drum machine pattern where the hi-hat, snare, and kick each run in different prime-number cycle lengths - the groove feels perpetually off-balance yet propulsive because it never fully repeats. "Gelt" is Yiddish for money - Burnett has described the title as being about "what you make when you're not making music for anyone in particular." Released on Whities, it established HD-bass kinetic techno as a distinct UK production category separating his work from both Hessle Audio's bass legacy and Berlin minimal. - On "Whities 022"
2020
"Deep Reggaeton / Ambient-Club Fusion DNA"
Brian Piñeyro built the track around a dembow rhythm (the foundational reggaeton beat pattern) slowed to ambient pace - 70 BPM rather than the genre's standard 100-110. LA Warman's vocals were recorded remotely during lockdown and delivered as a voice memo file. The title is an abbreviation Piñeyro has never decoded publicly. Mas Amable was the album that named "deep reggaeton" as a genre - a fusion Piñeyro invented partly by accident and partly from growing up between Ecuadorian cumbia and New York club culture. - On "Mas Amable"
2020
"Berlin Electro-Techno / Vocal Mutation DNA"
Stefanie Rave and Virginia (Virginia Stefani) recorded this in Berlin during lockdown as a collaboration between two producers who had been in parallel label and club circles for a decade without working together. The vocal was written and delivered in one session; Rave built the electro-techno chassis around it afterward. Released on Ostgut Ton, it was the label's first release to center a vocal performance as the primary compositional element rather than as texture. - On "Help Me Understand EP"
2021
"Micro-House / Minimal-Groove DNA"
Rémi Lerner built this around a single Juno-106 chord stab run through a phase shifter - the micro-house groove comes from manually quantizing the swing to 55% rather than using a preset shuffle. District was his Innervisions debut and the track that moved him from French underground club producer to international label act. Lerner has described it as "the track I made trying to sound like Berlin and accidentally sounding like myself." - On "District EP"
2021
"Glitch-Cerebral / Digital Minimalism DNA"
Lewis Roberts built this from a custom Max/MSP patch that introduces controlled random pitch micro-variations into every note - the glitch-cerebral quality is the patch behaving slightly differently on each pass through the sequence. Black Sun was made during a five-year period where Roberts released almost nothing, working instead on the Nul label infrastructure and refining his production approach. Released on Young Turks, it was his first major label single and defined digital minimalism as an emotionally legible rather than purely formal category. - On "Yugen"
2021
"UK Garage / Breakbeat Mutation"
The Russell brothers built this from a pitched-down sample of a UK garage vocal they found on a 2001 white label purchased at Spitalfields Market in London. The breakbeat arrangement deliberately references the 2-step garage grid their source material came from, but runs at techno tempo - a temporal collision that defined Overmono's approach to UK dance music history as raw material rather than genre. Released on XL Recordings, it became their commercial breakthrough and introduced the breakbeat mutation to festival-scale audiences. - On "Good Lies"
2021
"Hard Minimal / Dark Techno Core"
De Witte built Selected as a showcase for her KNTXT imprint's aesthetic rather than as a standalone statement - a hard minimal framework built entirely from 909 and a single SH-101 sequence with no additional elements. Released on KNTXT, it was the track that proved the label had a sound distinct from the broader Belgian techno scene she had emerged from. De Witte's ability to sustain peak-time energy through reduction rather than addition defined her position as the decade's foremost exponent of dark techno minimalism. - On "Selected EP"
2021
"Driving Techno / Industrial Club DNA"
Lens built Drift around a modular sequence that deliberately avoids a tonic resolution - the driving industrial energy comes from harmonic tension that never lands. Released on her Exhale imprint during a period when she was playing 8-10 hour sets, the track was designed to sustain mid-set momentum without peaking - a functional club tool built for endurance rather than impact. The industrial club DNA is from Antwerp's warehouse rave tradition, filtered through Berlin's architectural production aesthetic. - On "Drift EP"
2022
"Melodic-Techno / Emotional Peak-Time DNA"
Colin Benders (also known as Kyteman) built this on a fully modular live system - no DAW, no sequencer pattern, every melodic phrase performed in real time. Resolve was the track that shifted him from jazz-orchestra musician to melodic techno producer and established his position within the Afterlife aesthetic without being released on the label. The emotional peak-time DNA comes from Benders' orchestral background: the climax is structured like a symphonic resolution, not a festival drop. - On "Resolve EP"
2022
"Melodic Techno / Audio-Visual Spectacle DNA"
Matteo Milleri (Anyma) and Chris Avantgarde built this as a live audio-visual piece first - the production decisions were made to support real-time 3D visuals rendered by Anyma's DGTL system before it existed as a track. Consciousness became the defining Afterlife sound-of-record: melodic techno built for arena-scale experience rather than club function. Released on Afterlife, it marked the moment the label moved from underground tastemaker to global festival circuit staple. - On "Consciousness EP"
2022
"Psychedelic Techno / Club Transcendence"
Teneil Throssell built this during a period of deliberate production isolation - no club bookings, no social media, studio only. Baby, We're Ascending uses a psychedelic techno architecture that references the kosmische musik of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze while remaining fully functional club material. Released on Mute, it was the track that established HAAi as a producer rather than a DJ-who-produces, and defined club transcendence as a distinct emotional category within melodic techno. - On "Baby, We're Ascending"
2022
"Hard Techno / Emotional Euphoria Core"
Arthur Bardet built this around a deliberately mistuned Roland Juno-60 where the chorus circuit was running at double the standard rate - the emotional euphoria core comes from the detuning instability rather than any chord writing. Werewolf Disco Club was the track that moved I Hate Models from dark minimal into emotional hard techno - a genre-category shift he has described as "finding out what I was actually making." Released on his own APR imprint and later licensed to various compilations. - On "Werewolf Disco Club EP"
2022
"Deep Melodic / Berlin Techno DNA"
Carmine Conte and Matteo Milleri built Nova as a live set opener for their 2022 Afterlife world tour - the track was performed before it was released, tested across 30+ shows before the studio version was finalized. The deep melodic structure is built from a single sustained pad chord that evolves over nine minutes; every other element in the track orbits that single harmonic center. Released on Afterlife, it defined Berlin techno DNA in its most commercially successful form without leaving the underground aesthetic. - On "Eons EP"
2022
"UK Bass / UK Garage-Infused Breakbeat DNA"
The duo kept their identities anonymous until 2023, releasing exclusively through their own TS label and distributing through Bandcamp with no press, no interviews, no social media promotion. Home spread entirely through DJ play and music forum discussion. The UK garage-infused breakbeat architecture references 2-step's rhythmic DNA while running at post-club tempo. When Pitchfork named it track of the year 2022, Two Shell had never spoken publicly about the music. - On "Home EP"
2023
"Berlin Sound-Design DNA"
Barker built this as a direct continuation of the Utility concept - kickless techno extended into sound-design territory where the distinction between melody and rhythm has been removed entirely. Wick and Wax uses a granular synthesis approach where each "note" is a fragment of a previous recording of the same patch, creating a self-referential loop of processed material. Released on Ostgut Ton, it extended Berlin sound-design DNA into a fully compositional rather than functional frame. - On "Utility"
2023
"Avant-Garde House / Surrealist-Pop DNA"
"Wespennest" is German for wasps' nest - Stefan Kozalla built the track around Kennedy's surrealist vocal delivery of a lyric about domestic anxiety and social intrusion. The avant-garde house architecture is built from a Rhodes piano run through a pitch-quantizer that forces every note to sit a semitone above its intended pitch - the slightly-wrong tonality gives the track its unsettled quality. Released on Pampa, it was the track that demonstrated Koze's production approach was as unconventional as his DJ sets. - On "Knock Knock"
2023
"Deep-Experimental / Hypnotic Sound-Design DNA"
Rrose built this entirely from granular synthesis of biological field recordings - mold spore dispersal, fungal growth, microscopic organic movement - processed until the source was acoustically unrecognizable but its slow temporal quality remained. Spore extends Rrose's water-source methodology from Waterfall into biological material, deepening the experimental sound-design project. Released on Eaux, it was the track that confirmed Rrose as a research-driven producer rather than a techno producer with an aesthetic. - On "Spore EP"
2023
"Industrial Rave / Hard Dance DNA"
Viktor Jakupovic and Dario Zenker built the track as a deliberate provocation against the nostalgia-driven techno revival that dominated Berlin in the early 2020s - "babyboomer" is their term for producers recycling 90s industrial aesthetics without updating the politics. The industrial rave architecture runs at 150 BPM - above standard techno tempo - to distinguish it from what they were critiquing. Released on their own 3000Grad imprint, it became the accidental anthem for a Berlin scene that hadn't yet named itself. - On "Satan Was A Babyboomer EP"
2024
"UK Bass / Viral Underground Mutation DNA"
O'Grady built this on the same minimal setup as Hyph Mngo - a small hardware rig with no DAW arrangement - but 15 years of production development in the timbre. Flight fm spread through DJ sets before a release existed; it circulated as an unnamed promo for eight months. When released on Hessle Audio, the SoundCloud comments referenced specific DJ sets where it had appeared. The UK bass viral underground mutation is literal: the track's distribution was entirely informal before it was official. - On "Still Slipping Vol. 1"
2024
"Advanced Breakbeat Science DNA"
Bryan Müller built this from a breakbeat grid that simultaneously references jungle's amen-break tradition and IDM's asymmetric percussion programming - the advanced breakbeat science is a formal rather than stylistic description. Double Standard was the track from ISS that most clearly positioned Müller within the Aphex Twin / Squarepusher IDM lineage while remaining fully club-functional. Released on Ilian Tape, it extended the Munich label's drum machine science into genuinely new rhythmic territory. - On "ISS"
2023
Alarico (identity kept deliberately obscure) built this as a direct reference to the Aphex Twin aesthetic of 1997 - "AF 97" stands for Aphex Formula 1997. The track uses the same FM synthesis approach Richard James employed on Richard D. James Album but routes it through a contemporary modular system that replicates the instability of James's early-90s hardware setup. Released on Involve Records, it was the track that positioned 2023's advanced breakbeat scene in explicit dialogue with IDM's foundational decade rather than treating it as historical reference. - On "AF 97 EP"
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