Adam Beyer and Chris Avantgarde meet in the middle on Desolate Lands

Adam Beyer has spent three decades near the front of techno’s mainstage circuit, and Desolate Lands pairs him with someone considerably newer to it: the German producer Chris Avantgarde.

Beyer’s the Swedish DJ, producer and label boss who emerged in the mid-1990s, and he’s played mainstages from Awakenings to Time Warp to Tomorrowland ever since.

Avantgarde’s the newer name here: a German producer, born Christian Vornweg, whose breakthrough came largely through his collaborations with Anyma and Tale Of Us’ Afterlife scene.

Desolate Lands sits right at the point where their two sounds actually meet. It’s built on a stripped-down mixing runway before the basses come in and don’t hold back, a cerebral, slow build that carries Avantgarde’s melodic instincts through Beyer’s harder techno frame. On record, that comes closer to a genuine split than most joint techno tracks manage.

Desolate Lands anchors an eight-track album that’s mostly Beyer alone. Layton Giordani joins him on Alto. HNTR and Kyozo round out Hypnotic. Everything else on the record, he made by himself.