by John Bush
On Places, Beltram proved that his take on hard, acid-washed techno remained one of the most original in the field, years after his first innovational singles for R&S. Using minimal patches of acid-stab synthesizer and densely clustered percussion for the tracks &Instant& and &Metro,& Beltram forces listeners to play connect the dots. While it often doesn't make much sense at first, repeated listenings reveal layers of intriguing grooves behind the repetition. Swiftly out of print after its first release, Places was reissued by Tresor in 1997.