maschinenfest #18, the coming of age of a festival legend in its own right, and it felt as fresh and compassionate as ever. with the tried-and-tested mixture of rhythmic and atmospheric, of confrontational and contemplative, of old and new school acts, mf is representative of family of congenial minds rather than just a genre. three days of wild dance craze, plenty of chatter and laughs, gin tonics, an unscheduled fire alarm during peak time and the usual ruthless exploitation of the participants’ bodies - relive that madness with 27 all exclusive tracks on the maschinenfest 2016 cd. musically, maschinenfest compilations rank as an encyclopaedic standard, with the contributors delivering the proper goods (rather than remnants). enjoy the calmer moments with dirk geiger, spherical disrupted and the [law-rah] collective; feel the drive of technoid beats and acid lines by blush_response, supersimmetria, 13th monkey and axiome; shake wildly to the rhythm’n’noise contributions by hypnoskull, winterkälte, ecstasphere, esa, cervello elettronico and iszoloscope. and as always, there are a number of oddities thrown in for good measure: a gritty digital hardcore track by ambassador 21, the punk of ea 80, sinister martial pop by deutsch nepal and abrasive industrial darkness from fellow swedes morthound and trepaneringsritualen. fractional, hologram and sonic area represent the contemporary french school of glitch and bass, while niveau zero lets it break crossbreed style; the_empath, heimstatt yipotash and their shared project trackologists surprise us with a schizophrenic triplet of mutual remixes and last but not least the industrial fan is treated to the rattling agitation of industrial heroes test dept (with an adjunct redux). the 2016 edition is bound in white (sic!) cardboard with gold and silver print.