I mentioned it in my review of his excellent Asa Breed releases earlier this year, but Matthew Dear is a busy guy. Although it was a long while coming for a new release under his own name, he steadily churns out material under various pseudonyms (including a Fabric Mix as Audion last year). 2007 is just the latest release by his hand, and it follows nearly four years after he released a self-titled album as False on the Plus 8 label back in 2003. Essentially a live album that grew out of his "Fed On Youth/Face The Rain" 12" with the label, the release is a fourteen track, sixty minute journey through hard minimal techno.

Which is to say, it's about what you would probably expect if you've been following either Minus or Plus 8 Records since their inception. Things start off ominously, with an ever-increasing whine and a rapidly speeding beat that makes it sound like you're getting sucked down a vortex of some sort. Once the beat locks into a sufficient speed, though, it's all about the bump. "Meat Me In The Market" gets a bit slappy with some high-end minimal synth bursts while "Warm Co." and "Timing" strip things back even further, focusing on nearly completely rhythmic elements, with deep growls of bass that barely register on cheap speakers.

There's really no use splitting the release up into separate tracks, because everything flows together and ideas introduced in one track get extended into others and re-introduced at other points down the road. The beats are relentless and rumbling, hollowing out in only a few places (like the end of "Plus Plus") to ratchet up the tension while morphing into near blob-like mounds of sound in others ("Disease / George Washington"). Some of the best stuff on the release arrives towards the end, as high pitched synth stabs sear like ghosts in the machine on "Fed On Youth / HLM / DLG" while blasts of noise and spoken word samples mingle with the thumping on "Stomachs / Ankle Biter." Those who like a little more melody in their dance music will best look elsewhere, but minimal heads will absolutely eat up 2007, a heady mix that shows Dear can work it out long form just as well as he can short.