Techno’s greatest modern day paragon, Oscar Mulero releases his newest album of 2024, full of slower and introspective Techno for home listening and DJing on his Warm Up label.
This album is a marked difference from a lot of the Polegroup sounds and artistry surrounding the sounds of Madrid and Iberian Techno as a whole. This is mostly due to the fact that a lot of that sound is very distorted, deeply layered, and completely cerebral. As such, it has garnered a lot of fans. This latest release is also a departure from Mulero’s other albums, where there are fewer IDM influences and experimentation. “Have you ever retired a human by mistake?” seems to be very much about finding a comfortable place to call home within Techno music. It is almost akin to Alec Empire’s album “Low on Ice,” where the stress of performing as Atari Teenage Riot and DJing Digital Hardcore overnight found him retiring to a suitcase studio making Musique Concrete. Here as well, it feels very much that Oscar Mulero similarly wishes to maintain and profess his love for Techno, but also be at home, relaxing in the grooves, making music that just feels easy.
There are not many prominent standouts on the album; it seems like the whole release is a complete and unified statement. There’s no threatening stance or any sense of intensity that is too great to bear. The most intense the album gets is with “Orange Body, Green Legs,” but the balanced and subdued elements in the rest of the track balance it out. For most of the time, the sense of intensity is relegated to the necessary function of creating tension and release. This is typified most evidently by the static noisy line at just about eye level in the mix on “Disappear Inside”, “Burning with the Fires of Orc,” or the dissonances in “Take Pleasure from the Serpent”. But again, in each instance, the rest of the track is well balanced so that the intense and functional aspects of the track are muted by an unmistakable and introspective calm.
It’s difficult for many of us to imagine a place in our musical careers (or just as a dancer or average listener) where one can fathom being able to just breathe, and the Techno emanates as if it were just water vapor rising to the sky on a cold day. But it definitely feels as if this were the case in the making of this “Have you ever retired a human by mistake?” album.
Other albums from Oscar Mulero seem to satisfy a certain curiosity, but this album stems from a need to create, and also to feel comfortable doing so. As a listener and also like Mulero—a person who cannot stop listening to techno 24-7—you’re caught up and welcome to join in.
-Sean Ocean
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