The secret to producing great techno is learning how to apply the minimum amount of force necessary at exactly the right moment. Wata Igarashi is intimately familiar with this idea: he’s built his entire career around this principle.

His second album My Supernova is a case in point. It’s more direct than his refined, artful debut album – Agartha was inspired by Miles Davis, kosmische music and post-war minimalism – but it’s never brutal or punishing. That shouldn’t come as a surprise: the Japanese producer has long been one of techno’s master technicians. Precise, subtle, delicate, hypnotic, organic, mechanical, powerful, psychedelic… his work is full of opposing forces and apparent contradictions.