The 10 Best Techno Albums of June 2024

June’s a weird time for techno. The steely, black-clad minimalism that techno tends to favor feels weirdly bleak, claustrophobic, nearly dystopian when the sun’s beating down and the air is sweltering. It often feels like music for warehouses and concrete bunkers more so than forests and grassy fields, barring the occasional Wolfgang Voight record. Maybe that’s why promoters preferred EDM for big summer festivals in the 2010s?

Still, techno waits for no one. There are always quality techno releases oozing out of the underground like some bubbling crude. You just have to find it. Turns out this is where things get tricky. The Techno tag on Bandcamp is more firehose than drinking fountain, with bazillions of new techno records flooding the platform every day. A good chunk of new techno albums never make their way to streaming platforms like Spotify, either. In fact, Techno seems surprisingly vinyl-oriented, considering the prevalence of controller DJs in 2024. To find the best techno albums, you’ve got to dig.

Dig we did. We’re fairly certain you’ll dig what we unearthed. There’s the rough-and-tumble nearly industrial techno the underground bunker tend to prefer but there’s also some more lush, sultry offerings for the heatwave. Without further ado, here are our picks for the top 10 Techno albums of June 2024.

The 10 Best Techno Albums of June 2024

10. Olof Dreijer & Diva Cruz – Brujas EP

The Knife’s Olof Dreijer delivers 3 tracks of impossibly intricate international techno, with Diva Cruz acting as sorceress over a skein of Latin American percussion and rave pyrotechnics. Unmissable.

9. Nicola Cruz – Data Passenger EP (Klasse Wrecks)

Another short EP of classy techno bangers, polished and glossy and slightly uptempo. Perfect light summer fare.

8. Fireground – Love Letter EP (Tresor)

Ferocious EP of barnstorming techno with moody serrated strings and some slick big room builds on Tresor. Relentless.

7. As’teka Nahuatl – Psycho Acousteka

Hard techno is right. Here’s another 4-track EP, this time with hard-as-nails foundry beats and sonar atmospherics, raging against the light at a pummeling 180 bpm. Another one recommended by Joe Muggs

6. Various Artists – Inner Circle

Nice mixture of sleek utilitarianism and atmosphere. Sturdy, hard-driving beats half-swallowed by bilious clouds of steam and fog.

5. UFO95 & Rodhad – Lavande

4 tracks of funky, stripped-down dub techno, heavy on percussion and atmosphere, delivered with impeccable precision.

4. Nkisi – The Altar

Absolutely killer 4-track EP of shuddering ritualistic techno from London’s Nkisi as recommended by Joe Muggs.

3. Various Artists – Herdersmat 41 – 44

Latest installment of the ever-increasingly-essential Herdersmat series, laying down scorching doom-laden industrial-tinged techno across 8 sides of vinyl on Rotterdam’s Mord label. Finds that sweetest of spots between industrial techno, hardstyle, and post-club aesthetics.

2. Actress – Statik

Actress returns with an album of foggy, mysterious club grooves, like something beamed from an astral sound stage where nothing ever changes.

1. Various Artists – Club InFine #1

Not entirely techno, but there’s enough to warrant its inclusion in this month’s best techno album roundup. Even more importantly, Club InFine’s mix of bouncy house beats and sleek, euphoric vocals hit just right in the hot, bright summer months. You KNOW a record’s good when it manages to pull ahead of one of yr favorite techno producers at the last conceivable second. Unmissable and addictive.

You can find a bunch of these releases, and more besides, on J’s June 2024 Spotify Playlist