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Detroit techno is an evergreen genre; maybe it’s not the most popular subculture within electronic underground, but shows impressively stable following and steady delivery of not-much-different music. Lack of evolution, or better, constancy of its sound and aesthetic is one its appeals which help it to stay within its rigidly austere and aggressively beat-driven environment without extinction or getting into mainstream.

And yet, after all these (quite unjust) preconceptions about impossibility of diversity and constancy, the new mix by 19.454.18.5.25.5.18 feels fresh, new and inspiring (stream above via Official.fm). It heavily reminds me of Redshape, another mystic persona, or late stuff by Carl Craig. 19.454.18.5.25.5.18, project of an unknown individual or a group (who knows?), first amazed techno fans by his murky mix for Resident Advisor and follows his path of dark mystery with an hour-long pastiche for a Dutch label Field Records. It starts from smokey underground and rises into brutal iciness of bare beats followed by more percussion-oriented and rhythm-variable passages. If anyone falls asleep in the beginning of the third quarter, this shapeshifer moves into even more minimalist areas with focus on drum patterns and tiny fragments of melody. It’s pretty characteristic to a project like 19.454.18.5.25.5.18 to end his mix with mood of a folklore sacrifice to gods, since his perception of techno seems pretty ritualistic, reaching the areas of slower-beats-focused Raime and Shackleton. Hold your breathe and prepare for an hour-long techno blackout.