There could not have been a better title than Digital Russian for the first full length cd by Moscow's tech-housers, ScSi-9.

ScSi-9 are really Anton Kubikov and Maxim Milyutenko, and Digital Russian is another superfine disc on one of my fave labels of late, Force Tracks. While it's a shame they haven't gotten around to compile the many ScSi-9 12 inch singles, Digital Russian in fact sounds very much like a collection of 12 inches. Every track is between the 7 and 9 minute mark, and it all has that superbreed we know and love as tech-house.

Every so often the tracks meander or get weighed down with cheesey synths, but I'm sure that if these were played on the dancefloor that wouldn't matter. For me, that only occurred on three tracks (tracks 2, 4 and 6), so to have 7 out of 10 tracks working for me is a pretty high ratio.

Kroy Menya V Pol Bita starts things out with a finger popping rhythm, intermittent synth bubbles, and broken glitch vocals. Horizon 16 has scraping dubbed percussives, a laid back backbeat and a lush synth melody mix, with punchy clavichordish bass synths accenting its' fineness. NDG is a dubby tech workout with all of the right sounds at the right times. Triptych has a fast-paced hardline beat mixed with a pulsing dub collage of synthtech keyboards. Just Married has a more laidback electro approach with a tape manipulated sample of a voice saying "Just....". My favorite ScSi-9 track is My Sunday Zoo - thanks to the minimal approach of beeps and blips which mimic frog-like noises, and the sampled breathy female voice which mixes in to everything with perfection.

ScSi-9 is well crafted tech-house, another shining moment on a great label called Force Tracks. Here's hoping they are working on a 12 inch collection on cd, as we speak.