Borderline Tenderness

VTSS has spent the last twelve months making the jump from cult favourite to one of the most in-demand DJs in Europe, her near-ubiquitous Boiler Room and HÖR sets turning her into the face of a harder, faster, more unapologetically hedonistic corner of the scene. Borderline Tenderness is her debut for the Berlin–Milan imprint VEYL, run by Maenad Veyl and Alex Knoblauch, and it arrives riding the momentum of last year’s Self Will EP. Six dancefloor-ready cuts spanning EBM, acid and hardcore techno, it has already been dubbed her strongest record to date by The Quietus—and it’s easy to hear why.

Opener Goin Nuts, with LSDXOXO, is the most direct statement of intent: a rolling acid bassline, a four-to-the-floor kick that refuses to let up, and the pair trading deadpan, almost taunting vocal lines over the top. It’s filthy, minimal and impossible to stand still to. C.E.T. Unlimited follows with a proper EBM stomp—dry, punishing drums and cheap-sounding synth stabs that land like blunt instruments, the kind of track designed to make a warehouse sweat.

Woah takes the tempo up and the track into harder territory, its frantic percussion and pitched-up vocal stabs edging towards breakbeat hardcore without ever losing the straight-ahead drive. It’s the most chaotic moment on the record, and the most thrilling. To Whom All Lovers, featuring Jasmine Azarian, is the EP’s emotional centre: a cold, distant vocal drenched in reverb sits above a lurching, mid-paced groove, the pads swelling underneath until the whole thing feels like a gothic ballad filtered through a club PA.

MDM508 with Crystal Geometry is the most abrasive cut, all razor-sharp acid lines and industrial clang, whilst closer Sytuacja Jest Beznadziejna—“the situation is hopeless” in Polish—winds the record down with a deceptively steady, hypnotic pulse and a resigned, whispered refrain. It’s a strangely poignant ending to an EP so defined by aggression, and it’s all the more striking for it.

With Borderline Tenderness, VTSS has captured the sound of a moment without sacrificing craft. Every track earns its place, the production precise enough to carry the violence without ever becoming muddled, and the guest features each bring something distinct rather than padding the tracklist. If this is the direction she’s headed, we’re very excited to follow.