Graham Dunning’s forthcoming album on Jollies Records documents the latest evolution of his Mechanical Techno system: a hand-built network of modified turntables, physical mechanisms, and chance processes that has formed the focus of his practice-research based PhD project over the past three years. Every track on the record is composed and performed entirely through this system, capturing dance music shaped by friction, instability, and human intervention.

Traversing techno, filter house, and acid, the album folds in traces of footwork, instrumental hip-hop, and UK garage, animated by a distinctly wonky machine mischief. Rhythms stumble, hi-hats slip into odd meters, monosynths growl, and record crackle becomes rhythmic material rather than artifact. The mechanical imperfections giving each track a handmade, continually shifting feel; all the while humanizing the equipment.

Each track employs a specific mechanical strategy: from beats formed from odd-toothed cogs, ball bearings triggering evolving MIDI sequences, ping-pong ball rhythms,mechanically played percussion with manually synchronized turntables, among other arrangements.

There are no neat drops or euphoric builds here. Structures bend and re-form as sounds unfold through a choreography of manual gestures. The album captures dance music in a state of productive imbalance, where machines are not tools for precision, but collaborators in uncertainty.