Bird EP

Recondite returns to Afterlife Recordings for the first time since his Rainmaker EP back in 2018, and he does so on a fittingly significant occasion: Bird is the label’s landmark 50th release. Two tracks long, the EP finds Lorenz Brunner’s brooding, downcast techno meeting the imprint’s signature euphoric-melodic lane head-on, and the collision is every bit as striking as that billing suggests.

Title track Bird wastes no time locating the record’s emotional centre. A four-to-the-floor kick and crisp, rolling hats provide the foundation, but it’s the soaring synth lead—all wide, cathedral-grade reverb and slow-blooming pads—that does the heavy lifting. Brunner lets the melody build patiently across its five minutes and fifty seconds, teasing a peak that never quite tips into bombast, and the restraint is what makes the pay-off land so hard. It’s the most openly euphoric thing Recondite has done in years, and it sits comfortably alongside Afterlife’s most beloved anthems.

The B-side, Secluded, is a different beast entirely, and all the better for it. Where Bird reaches skyward, Secluded burrows deep: a darker, more introspective affair built on a rolling sub bass, sparse percussion and a distant, fractured chord that echoes into the distance. It’s classic Recondite territory—the cavernous, late-night sound he’s honed across albums like On Acid and Daughter—and the contrast between the two tracks gives the EP a satisfying arc, light and shadow in perfect balance.

Bird is a confident, focused return. It celebrates a label milestone without ever sounding ceremonial, and it reminds you why Recondite remains one of the most distinctive voices in melodic techno. Two tracks that trade in euphoria and restraint, delivered with the precision of a producer at the top of his game—for the 50th release on one of the scene’s defining labels, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting statement.