Klasse Wrecks Named Its Debut EBM Duo Comply. The Opening Track Quotes RoboCop's Riot Robot.

ED-209 gives its targets twenty seconds before it opens fire. Klasse Wrecks just handed the line to a synthesizer instead.

The Hong Kong label's 62nd release, out since July 2, is called Comply, four tracks from a brand-new duo of the same name, and the opener is titled, plainly, "20 Seconds to Comply", ED-209's boardroom warning from RoboCop lifted whole. The label's own description doesn't dodge the reference: Klasse Wrecks calls the record a soundtrack for "our current dystopian and surreal surroundings," built from "EBM, dark acid and rave ghosts lost in the mist." Track two is "Icarus." Track three is "Rules Imposed." Nobody involved is being subtle, and on a record this direct, subtle wasn't the point.

Who's Actually Behind It

The vinyl label copy names the producers as Onirik, aka Federico Benedetti, and Jacques-Jérôme Martinez, credited on the sleeve as JJ Martinez. Neither has much of a public track record yet: this is billed as Comply's debut, and Klasse Wrecks founder Lucas Hunter has said before he'd rather work with an unknown than release something already signed elsewhere. That's not incidental. In a label spotlight for Mixmag Asia, Hunter described the label's approach in three words: "outside the industry." His partner, Michael Ho, put it plainer: "we have always and continue to release music that we like."

A Label That Doesn't Chase Trends

Klasse Wrecks has run that way for roughly fifteen years, since Hunter and Ho met DJing in Berlin and eventually rebuilt an earlier project, Klasse Recordings, into something rawer and less polished. The name is the tell: German for "class," bolted to a deliberately messy abbreviation of "records." The operation now splits between the UK and Hong Kong, presses to vinyl and cassette, and runs side projects in zines and clothing, including a prior capsule with Obey.

It's a small release by the numbers: four tracks, a debut duo, a niche subgenre most Southeast Asian dancefloors don't book. But EBM's current wave, the same lineage that's pulled acts like Yeti Out's Hong Kong network into rooms built for house and techno, keeps finding an audience precisely because it says the quiet part out loud. Comply just says it louder than most.

If You Want It

Comply streams free on SoundCloud and Bandcamp. The digital album runs €8 or more; the 12" vinyl, catalogue number WRECKS062, is €14 or more, pressed on black wax.

Cover: "Comply" sleeve, Klasse Wrecks / Onirik & JJ Martinez, official release artwork via klassewrecks.bandcamp.com.