DJ Trystero - Castillo

You'll remember the Toyko don from the knockout 12" on Trilogy Tapes last year, and you may even know him for the City-2 St. Giga label he helms and for whom Buttechno and Incensio boss Anthony Naples have both contributed. Well, Castillo raises the bar on any pre-conceptions those associations might conjure, a nine track, double LP of highly evolved techno futurism that feels instantely classic, drawing on electro, house and ambient in effortlessly liquid style. Unfair to make too many comparisons when a work feels so hermetically its own, though i can see easy connections with Kassem Mosse's Workshop series, Terrence Dixon's post-Drexciya futurescapes, or even Carl Craig's masterwork, More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art. No faint praise. If you've been in the shop at any point in the past week, you will have heard at least a part of this. The rest of 2023 is gonna have to work hard to top this.