From obtuse angles to intense physicality, Peder Mannerfelt’s highly individual take
on techno demands attention and consideration. While his many-sided body of
work reaches back more than a decade, the Swedish producer’s current
investigations in the field of experimental dance music are as prolific as they are
unpredictable.
To date he has recorded an accomplished series of albums as Roll The Dice
alongside Malcolm Pardon, explored a more direct strain of techno as The
Subliminal Kid and also lent his production skills to Fever Ray’s acclaimed debut
album and 2017’s Plunge.
It is under his own name that Mannerfelt’s sonic imprint can be most acutely felt at
present. Alongside appearances on Hinge Finger, Numbers., Lazy Tapes and more,
he established his own Peder Mannerfelt Produktions label to carry the bulk of his
output, and that of kindred spirits like Klara Lewis, Machine Woman and Sissel
Wincent. EPs such as Transmission From A Drainpipe and The 3D Printed
Songbook and LPs Controlling Body and Daily Routine all feed into a distinctive
abstraction of contemporary techno. It’s an approach at once engaging and
challenging, rendered in even starker terms when Mannerfelt takes to the stage.
Employing subtle props and working with striking visual accompaniments, Peder
Mannerfelt’s live shows bring the immediacy of his art front and centre in your
cerebellum. It’s the perfect mutation of music still rooted in the kinetic energy of
techno even as it seeks to break down the genre’s rigid, illusory formulae. By
extension, as a DJ he spans the propulsive and the crooked, the classic and the
unheard, the strange and the straight-up in a limber, instinctive fashion that
complements (and is equally fueled by) his own productions.