Crate Diggin’: An introduction to Binh’s back catalogue

Binh has an almost alien-like approach to club music. Go to see him play and you can typically expect to hear paranoid 130BPM techno carved up with spooky electro records, sounds he champions alongside the likes of Nicolas Lutz and his one-time Treatment partner-in-crime, Onur Özer. It’s a playing style owed to an almost implausible dedication to hunting for vinyl, often leaning heavily towards forgotten bombs dating back to the 90s. Binh was among the first of his generation of DJs to earn a reputation for his love of this frenetic style, and in recent years it’s also largely defined his productions. His studio work can be found on labels like Treatment, My Own Jupiter and his own Time Passages, and while you might hear traces of vintage-era Detroit or classy minimal house bubbling under the surface, it’s always executed in a way that sounds uniquely his own. With an upcoming Collisions date alongside Craig Richards on 17th November, we went through Binh’s back catalogue to pick out some of his key releases to date. This list is hardly an exhaustive one though, and based on Binh’s current form, don’t be surprised to hear more deadly techno and electro from him in the years to come.

Untitled C1 – Treatment [Treatment]

We don’t know what inspired Binh and Onur Özer to embrace high-tempo electro so brazenly for their debut release as Treatment, but you can wager it had something to do with the records they were just starting to play out together around the same time. Jittery, breaks-heavy and cuttingly sinister, LP smacks of the kind of older Detroit stuff you’d only stumble upon scouring through the depth of Discogs. Compare C1’s moodiness to almost any Underground Resistance record for some idea.

Buyout – Binh [Cabaret]

Trippy bleeps meet groaning synths on this house roller for DJ Masda’s reliably excellent Japanese label, Cabaret. Rinsed by Zip every time we saw him in 2016 – as good a stamp of approval you should need as a minimal producer.

Vermo 80 – Binh [Perlon]

Zip has made a legacy of championing the best minimal and other loosely-affiliated genres over the last two decades. In the late 90s Perlon became an early home for minimal house royalty acts like Ricardo Villalobos and Thomas Melchior, and that doesn’t even speak for the certified heaters that have always lined his record bag. So it makes sense that Binh should become one of the label’s stars today, and his Noah's Day EP is filled with the same heady quirks you would expect to hear at a Get Perlonized! night. Head to Vermo 80 for the wriggly acid.

Ume – Onigiri [Cabaret]

Yuki Masda isn’t best known as a producer, but you can hear the influence he had on Binh when they joined forces as Onigiri. Ume has the type of snarling percussion Binh has shown he can’t resist, only with added playful keys that sit snugly next to the dreamier sounds of So Ingawa and Spacetravel on Cabaret.

Ten-Ten – Binh [My Own Jupiter]

Ship of Imagination was Binh’s debut for close peer Nicolas Lutz’s imprint, and it’s also his most accomplished work to date. Each of these tracks heads on its own twisted minimalist techno and electro tangent, although for us it’s Ten-Ten that stands out the most. Snappy R2-D2 jiggles find a place next to hypnotic atmospherics and a punchy bassline, the kind that could keep you glued to the dancefloor deep into the late morning hours. This culminates with the introduction of a yo-yoing melody to round off what’s surely Binh’s finest moment so far.

Chalzedon – Binh [Time Passages]

When we covered Treatment last year we compared his latest Time Passages record to the sound of cult electro producer Dimensional Holofonic Sound, and if you compare Chalzedon’s digitised bleeps and stripped-back drums to something like the early-2000s rinser Telephone Sounds it’s easy to see why we did. The Binh giveaway lies in his moody bassline, one of the recurrent hallmarks you’ll easily hear in his voice.

Still On – DJ Nnamreg [Melliflow]

If we had to guess where Binh’s head was at when recording his first EP for Melliflow, the UK’s rich early-00s dance scene is the first place we’d point. Still On’s tech housey hi-hats wouldn’t sound out of place on labels like Swag or Wiggle, while the rolling bass is reminiscent of UK garage at its peak. Add the lifelike acid squashes, and it has all the makings of another future classic from a minimal expert in his prime. Listen to our favourite Binh records as a full playlist via our YouTube channel. Photo: Nick Ensing