Review
Genre and Mood
Oliver Koletzki’s Through the Darkness is where his album The Arc of Tension turns to techno. His label calls it a melodic interpretation of the techno of the moment, and the mood that follows from that is intense and hypnotic: a track about pushing forward rather than arriving.
Song Summary
The Arc of Tension was planned as one self-contained work with a natural flow and an arc of suspense, and Through the Darkness sits at its centre, the seventh of thirteen tracks, five minutes and 48 seconds long. The first half of the album is downbeat, with dreamy, exotic timbres; then, in the label’s words, the tension tightens and organic sounds evolve towards a sterner electronic cadence. This track is the ultimate turning point: here Koletzki starts continuously upping the tempo.
Musical Breakdown
Main Section
No review we found describes the track bar by bar, so this page describes less than usual. What the label’s notes give is its job and its character: the place where the album’s tempo starts to climb, and a melodic approach to techno that, the label says, he has been shaping since his 2015 track Iyéwaye, which the album also includes. Listen for where it leaves the cellos and piano of A Star Called Akasha behind.
Concepts in Focus
The record shows club culture seen from the inside. The label describes the album’s storytelling as rooted both in the quiet confidence of a veteran musician and in the hectic life of a DJ in demand around the world. An album that moves from downbeat to driving, as the label describes it, follows the logic of a long DJ set.
A remix sent the track back to the club. On The Arc of Tension Remixed II, released on 27 October 2017, Township Rebellion turned it into a seven-and-a-half-minute version that the release notes say leads with percussion, choral harmonies and upbeat strings out of the dark ambience. Compare the two and you hear an album track and a DJ tool made from one idea.
Artistic Context
Koletzki was born in Braunschweig in 1974 and is based in Berlin. His breakthrough came in 2005 with Der Mückenschwarm, released on Cocoon Recordings after Sven Väth noticed it, and the same year he co-founded the label Stil vor Talent with Slawjana Ulrich. The Arc of Tension, released on 19 May 2017 as SVT193, was his sixth album; the label notes that his earlier albums focused on vocal collaborations, while this one moves on to a different form of storytelling.
Impact and Reception
The album reached number 86 in Germany and 94 in Switzerland, and a series of remix releases followed the same year. It is here for the sound of a turn: the point where an album decides to move. Play it from the start of the record if you can.
