Few techno institutions are more celebrated than Berghain. First opened in 2004, the vaunted Berlin club has since become the effective gold standard for international nightlife, not to mention a bucket-list destination for even casual clubbers—assuming they can actually get in. There’s a mythology around the place, and while it’s been exaggerated over the years (sometimes to the point of cliché), there’s no denying Berghain’s influence on electronic music, fashion, visual art, sound systems, door policies and all kinds of how-to-run-a-club-properly minutiae. In short, it’s reshaped the idea of what nightlife can—and should—be.
Berghain is at the center of Scanning Backwards, the second full-length from New York-reared, Berlin-based artist Phase Fatale (aka Hayden Payne). A resident DJ at the club who specializes in mixing techno with industrial, EBM, and post-punk, he has said that every track on the new LP was specifically tailored to sound a certain way inside Berghain’s walls. Dark, heavy, and impeccably engineered, the record can’t be described as minimal, but it’s certainly been stripped down to the essentials. Where Payne’s last album, 2017’s Redeemer, ladled thick layers of noise and distortion atop a techno foundation, here he’s left unnecessary flourishes behind in favor of maximum potency. Upping the impact is his decision to keep the tempo relatively slow (the fastest track on the record clocks in at 123 BPM, and Payne frequently dips well below that); the extra breathing room makes each beat hit that much harder. In terms of its utility, the album is an unqualified success.
Musically, though, Scanning Backwards is entering a crowded field. Although Phase Fatale’s own industrial and post-punk bona fides are impeccable—he played in several post-punk and cold wave groups after first cutting his teeth at NYC’s long-running Wierd parties in the late 2000s—he’s also releasing his highest-profile album to date at a time when the latest industrial techno boom has arguably crested.
You can’t fault Payne for sticking to his creative guns; he’s not someone who hopped onto the industrial techno bandwagon after hearing a few Blawan tracks in 2012. At the same time, there just isn’t much room for Scanning Backwards to say something new, particularly following a decade in which artists like Silent Servant, Helena Hauff, Broken English Club, Paula Temple, Perc, Regis, Vatican Shadow, Veronica Vasicka, and so many others have all been such a prominent part of the techno landscape. Those artists’ success has contributed to a surge of interest in prior generations of industrial techno experimenters, such as Surgeon, Sandwell District, Adam X, and British Murder Boys, not to mention industrial and EBM originators like Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, Throbbing Gristle, DAF, Cabaret Voltaire, and others too numerous to list. Techno has become inundated with industrial sounds, especially at clubs like Berghain, and Scanning Backwards, which might have sounded more impressive two years ago, doesn’t do quite enough to innovate or build upon that style.
Scanning Backwards does include one track which is truly transcendent. Album closer “Splintered Heels” is a raw, powerful cut led by a sinister bassline and the sort of blunt, hard-hitting percussion that powered old Wax Trax records. Yet this is no simple dancefloor stormer; a haunting, shoegaze-esque melody lends the track a spooky, cinematic feel and a subtle (albeit dark) pop vibe. The contrast reflects a newfound elegance in Payne’s work.
Other highlights include the ominously churning “De-patterning,” the sludgy metal haze of “Polystyrene,” and the thundering stomp of “Binding by Oath.” Scanning Backwards is by no means a friendly album—Payne has said the LP is conceptually rooted in weaponized sound and psychological manipulation—but there’s something invigorating about its menacing nature. For fans of industrial techno, it's a solid album, better than most, even. It’s not difficult to imagine just about any track from the record tearing the roof off at Berghain. But outside of that environment, the music loses some of its magic, largely because so many of its notes—even its strongest ones—have been heard before.
