Although every critic and their dear old mom salivate over the stars of London's glamorous drum-n-bass scene, the UK's faceless, mostly nameless techno bods seldom get their due. Granted, Underworld get major coverage, but isn't that just because they have a hyperkinetic bloke who bangs on nonsensically, rather than because of Darren Emerson's bangin' beats? Even Orbital rarely garner the attention they truly deserve. After all, what can you say about them apart from, "Here's another routinely excellent album by the brothers Hartnoll, which sounds similar, yet different, to all their previous releases"? People only really noticed In Sides, Orbital's last album, after the guys covered the theme to the stupefyingly lame movie, "The Saint."

But that's all going to change, because the uber- underground Detroit label, 430 West, has picked up Simon J. Hartley, Mr. Wild Planet. But why are 430 West bothering to issue an album by this pasty- faced guy from Leeds? Is it because Hartley's first material was written in collaboration with LFO member and Bjork producer, Mark Bell? Is it because Hartley released his first Wild Planet album on Warp, home of all artificiently intelligent music? Could be. What about Hartley's connections to Laurent Garnier? Or his Swedish girlfriend? (You'd like to think so, eh?)

No matter what their motivation, 430 West have released a superb album. Throughout Transmitter, Hartley's always careful to set down patterns and textures at the perfect point, and remove (or adapt) them with equal discretion. The second track, "Synthetic," with its clipped speed garage beats and Cabaret Voltaire- ish melody is about as funky as techno'll ever get. On "Fuel," Hartley takes on Aux 88 at their own self- mythologizing game and shows the Detroit techno bass massive that there's more to this techno lark than self- referential language and ripping off Kraftwerk.

"I Should Fly" leaves Aux 88 licking their wounds and gives Carl Craig's Planet E label sound a drubbing. The bassline is a distorted utterance, curled and shredded, which moves up from the sub-bass, as though gasping for release. It's this chthonic voice juxtaposed with subdued synth pads and a delicate percussion loop that gives the track its compelling tension. "Frozen Signal" serves as a warning to the Brighton UK techno axis of Justin Berkovi and Neil Landstrumm that their trademark hard, abstract dance sound is up for grabs, too. However, for Transmitter's grand finale, Hartley exceeds himself by fashioning the scantest of three- note melodies and the thumpin'est of basslines into the anthemic "Hemisphere." Of all these tracks, "Hemisphere" is the one that least resembles anything by Hartley's peers and tellingly deserves to be club staple.

While he may be taking other artists' sounds and adapting them (a significant criticism of not just Transmitter but of too many albums, be they techno or not), Hartley amply displays a profound understanding of tonality and structure, pattern and texture. Just as Adam Dorn's Mocean Worker project breathed new life into drum-n-bass, Wild Planet's Transmitter is every bit as vital and as thrilling as you ever thought techno could be.

-Paul Cooper