When Is Techno Not Techno?

When is techno not techno — or barely techno, or so ambient as to maybe not quite be ambient techno? When with each hint of a beat it declines to push things particularly forward, when it maintains its pace like a heartbeat, which is to say: a steady double thump, so human that you think of it less as a beat and more as a necessary presence, natural despite, here, its machine origins. When additional lonesome sounds appear akin to cloud formations, and other instances of the weather, not tethered to any rhythm, low level as that rhythm may be. When you have difficulty tapping at a pace to gauge the BPM, and find yourself double- and quadruple-timing just to make sense of what is happening. This is “Ballade,” a wonderfully understated track by Nay Seven, who is based in Rennes, France. I’d file this under what I’ve been coming to think of as “sound design techno,” at its more atmospheric extreme. (Track found thanks to a repost by Petrus Major.)