Mycrotom is Tom Simonetti, a drummer, DJ and producer from Augsberg, Germany. His full-length debut Ratoratiyo appears on Mongkong Music, and it offers up a curious 'n' creative take on electro beat-based music.

Mycrotom's sound is a kinetic, sweaty repetitive beat workout, with the physicality and grit of live hardware performance. Stylistically, the rhythms draw upon breaks, warehouse techno, and afro-house, a suitably organic primitivist music for the modern dystopian cityscape. His basslines are raw, fat pulse waves that start to sound a lot like drum & bass when the filter cutoff drops down low. He prefers the same kind of syncopated triplet feel used in a lot of DNB, but this is much slower and simpler music, at a decidedly downtempo energy level. As a result, there's a lot of similarities here to UK garage and juke/footwork.

The style is consistent through the album's 7 songs, with essentially the same drum timbres throughout, possibly all the same drum machine, a very punchy but low-resolution sound. The patterns tend to be rigid, and the retro 'hardware only' approach means the only sequences are short and blocky. Once a song is settled into its central pulse, it will not deviate from its locked in tempo, with shifting ambiences and accompaniment providing the only changes.

That said, for people like myself for whom beats like these form the central backbone to my everyday life, this is certainly no problem, and I relate on a deep level with the hypnotic, consistent cadence of this album. A definite mood is established, that sense of navigating through the busy urban work life as but a single insignificant piece moving through it, the same feeling summoned by classic albums from Monolake or Richie Hawtin. This album could be called 'IDM' by the original meaning, when it was a pensive downtempo genre.

The oddly titled "Ago Agogoldenhorseshoe" stands out for its satisfying use of string bass samples on the bassline. Here, the lo-fi crackle seems calculated just perfectly to add texture to the rhythm without taking away any of its power. Another special mention goes to the spoken word and field recording clips that appear in the background of the first piece "Iquito Bird", as well as the curious thumb piano lead which is a more tribal and organic sound than any other found on the recording.

Though it's a largely atmospheric release, Simonetti clearly enjoys distortion to a larger extent than your average dub techno producer, with unapologetic and untreated grainy edges of distorted bass ripping through the mix on many occasions in the album's first half. In this way, he is aligned with the intentional imperfection of the 'raw house' and 'raw techno' movements.

Overall, the album is a pleasant listen, with certain tracks standing out as more natural and cohesive. At times, the blocky rigidness of the sequencing makes the style feel rhythmically stunted, and the tone of the pulsing bass can be ringy and one dimensional ("Mumiru"). Perhaps the most beautiful pieces are "Caverna Tragica" and closer "Another Fab", which also happen to be the most melodic, smooth and awash in reverb. On these tracks, the beats and ambiences really mesh into a gliding, expectant groove as a single entity, and the limitations of the gear are forgotten.

This is a solid entry into the genre of vinyl/hardware purist ambient techno/downtempo, though there is still much room for improvement in both the texture and composition of Simonetti's work. I would like to hear him employ a larger variety of tones with respect to drums as well as basslines. He has already demonstrated a significant gift for billowing, sparkling synth atmosphere, rolling offbeat rhythms and dub bassline composition. "Caverna Tragica" will likely be appearing in one of my chillroom mixes in the future.