Knoxville producer Alex Falk first appeared on International Black in 2019 with the label’s fourth release, and his return a year later sees him lean further into the hypnotic, loop-driven techno that has made him one of the most promising young producers in the US underground. A core member of the TEKNOX crew alongside Nikki Nair, Falk sits squarely in the orbit of Bradley Zero’s darker sister imprint to Rhythm Section International, and INTLBLK008 is a masterclass in restraint: five loopy, voice-manipulated rollers culled from over 100 drafts, mastered by Helmut Erler at Berlin’s Dubplates & Mastering.
Opener Bronze sets the tone from the very first bars, its chugging four-to-the-floor kick propping up a bassline that never quite settles, whilst pitch-shifted vocal fragments skip across the surface like stones across water. Nothing here moves fast, and that’s the point—Falk treats the loop as his unit of currency, each eight-bar cycle stripping away another layer until the track feels less like a song and more like a mantra.
Needs is even more skeletal, its rubbery synth stabs and tightly-wound percussion leaving the voice to do the melodic heavy lifting, while City Scan is the most heads-down moment on the record; dubby, spacious and smothered in delay, it’s the kind of track that makes you check the clock and realise forty minutes have vanished.
Blue Jellies lightens the mood with an elastic, almost playful bassline and a shimmering top-end that feels like sunlight breaking through, before closer Fuchsia brings the EP to a warm, expansive end—the pads opening out like a deep breath, the vocal manipulations at their most expressive. It’s a considered sequence, and one that rewards patience.
That’s what separates INTLBLK008 from so much functional techno: it’s been stripped back to its essentials, yet never feels thin. Each loop is meticulously placed and the production so clean it glistens. A confident, quietly brilliant return.
