B12

Among the scant British techno outfits committed to extending a lineage of the genre that traces directly back to its Detroit origins, B12 stands out as one of the rare acts embraced by the Motor City’s own tastemakers. The London duo of Mike Golding and Steve Rutter, known for their reluctance to engage with the music press, have advanced post-rave techno by adapting Detroit’s signature blend of optimistic and dystopian futurism to a digital context, shaping pieces of gleaming, intricately syncopated electro-techno grounded in melody and atmosphere.

Early output appeared as a series of untitled 12-inch singles on their self-run B12 Records imprint under an array of aliases including Redcell, Musicology, and Cmetric; these records quickly placed the pair alongside fellow U.K. acts such as LFO, the Black Dog, Sweet Exorcist, and Tricky Disco at the forefront of a fresh wave of electronic music emerging after acid house. In 1992 the duo joined the Warp roster and appeared, credited as Musicology, on the label’s landmark Artificial Intelligence compilation. Warp issued Electro-Soma in 1993, collecting highlights from those formative recordings, after which the pair entered a three-year silence before returning with the similarly styled Time Tourist in 1996; both albums later received American reissues via Wax Trax!/TVT.

The 1998 release 3EP took a darker, breakbeat-oriented turn, yet B12 soon withdrew from view. Golding and Rutter resurfaced in 2005 to revive B12 Records, resumed live appearances, and delivered three EPs in 2007—one of them finally seeing full release after remaining only a test pressing since 1996—followed by the album Last Days of Silence in 2008. That set contained an additional disc of live recordings, while a separate remix collection appeared later the same year. Multiple installments of the B12 Records Archive series also emerged, gathering both issued and previously unheard material from the duo’s various projects.

After another period of relative quiet through the early 2010s, B12 re-emerged in 2015 with the EPs Bokide 325 on Soma and Orbiting Souls on Delsin. The following year they launched the FireScope label and maintained a steady stream of singles and EPs, with further titles appearing on Central Processing Unit (All Abandon All), De:tuned (Transient Life), and Touched (BrokenBroken). In 2017 Warp revisited Electro-Soma and paired it with the archival companion disc Electro-Soma II.