Damon Wild Downtown Worlds

• Words: Dave Segal
• Label: Kanzleramt
• XLR8R Rating: /10

Seasoned New York techno vet Damon Wild built his bulletproof underground rep with banging acid techno for heads into Beltram, Stoll and their ilk. With Downtown Worlds, Wild refines some of the abrasiveness out of it while easing the pressure off the gas pedal. Far from smoothing out his tracks, these changes serve him well. Now Wild's music's more about finesse than velocity. Like Surgeon and Marco Bailey, Wild transplants primal African and Asian elements into relentlessly propulsive, hypnotic techno frameworks. Downtown Worlds is a potent fusion of "tribal" and "machine" elements-a combo many have tried to master, but few as wildly.