With his second solo album ready to drop late next month via Ostgut Ton, German sound specialist and techno mainstay Tobias. has given us the first taste of A Series of Shocks, a churning and deftly produced slab of mechanical grooves called “Ya Po.” The relentless tune is lifted straight from the middle of the artist born Tobias Freund’s forthcoming 10-track record, and offers a perfect example of the kind of stark and dancefloor-specific music it will offer when it drops on March 31. Before then, the new production from Tobias. can be streamed in full via the player below.

Launched last year, Toronto’s Foundry series of events is set to begin again next month, and will once again bring an impressive run of producers and DJs to the Canadian city over the course of several weekends. Artists like Four Tet (pictured above), Shed, Carl Craig, Shigeto, Anthony “Shake” Shakir, Cosmin TRG, DJ Harvey, and local techno hero Nautiluss are among the acts set to perform at the series’ six events—spread across the Friday and Saturday of three separate weekends. Furthermore, this year’s Foundry events will take over Toronto’s Tower Automotive building, presenting its comprehensive range of electronic talents in the stark atmosphere of a decades-long abandoned building.

Full details of Foundry’s 2014 run—which begins with Four Tet headlining on March 14 and concludes with Carl Craig closing out the night of April 5—can be found here. The event series has also produced a short teaser video for the upcoming nights, which can be watched below. Those in search of more background on the fledgling Toronto series can read XLR8R‘s 2013 review of the Foundry series’ inaugural run here.

At the beginning of the year, XLR8R kicked off its annual Bubblin’ Up Week with an in-depth profile of Barcelona’s growing electronic scene. One of the producers we spoke with was Austrian-born Zora Jones, who relocated to the seaside Spanish city several years back. In tandem with boyfriend and frequent collaborator Sinjin Hawke, Jones has her hands in many projects, including Fractal Fantasy, a web portal that has been quite busy recently, premiering trippy, CGI-rich clips for some of Hawke’s many collaborative efforts, including tracks with Morri$, L-Vis 1990, and MikeQ. (Those can be viewed here, here, and here.) This morning, Fractal Fantasy debuted a new clip from Jones herself. “Moonstar” is tantalizingly short, but the visuals (created by VL-TR) are quite potent, combining images of a fighter jet with neon lights and well-timed renderings of splashing liquid. As for the music, the song is centered around brightly stabbing synth melodies and thunderous bits of percussion. The video, which premiered on Dummy, can be viewed below.

We’ve been hearing quite a bit from experimental UK producer patten since late last year, when he announced his signing with electronic music institution Warp to release an EP and LP. He’s dropped a couple of videos, shared a DJ mix, gave away a batch of psychedelic edits, and more, and he’s now decided to share every track from his upcoming second album ESTOILE NAIANT before it drops next week. By heading to patten’s website, here, and clicking the snowflake icon on the far right, each of the artist’s 10 brand-new productions can be heard in their entirety.

Pearson Sound surprisingly closed out January by issuing a two-track 7″ single, “Raindrops,” via his own eponymous label. Now, the London-based producer and Hessle Audio co-founder has followed it up with an official video. The record, which essentially features two takes on a single song idea, is rather subdued—not to mention entirely beatless—so it makes sense that the video for “Raindrops” would be similarly subtle. Over the course of three and a half minutes, the music’s plinking tones are matched by hazy patches of colored light, which gradually swell and envelop the entire screen. The video can be viewed below.

Just last week, UK producer Perc (a.k.a. Ali Wells) compiled a list of his favorite acid cuts for our Hi-Five series, and today, he’s finally released his debut full-length, The Power and the Glory. To commemorate the occasion, he’s put together a new DJ mix for FACT. The original post supposes that the mix centers around producers that Wells “feels an affinity with,” but also notes that the session isn’t completely composed of the dark, hard-charging sounds for which he’s best known. As the post says, “there’s plenty of light in amongst the darkness.” Perc’s nearly hour-long mix is streaming below, and we’ve also included the complete tracklist for the potential trainspotters out there.

1) Pino Donaggio – School In Flames (Carrie OST) – United Artists
2) Max Cooper – Impacts (Perc Remix) – Fields
3) Perc – Take Your Body Off (Tessela Remix) – Perc Trax
4) Eschaton – Kali – Token
5) Young Male – Finesse – Work Them Records
6) Paul Mac – Grand Statement – Teng Records
7) Miss Modular – Reflector Pack (4/4) – Her Records
8) Paul Du Lac – Backstreet Boy – Bio Rhythm
9) Liss C – Concepts – 030 Recs
10) Perc – 405 (Unilever Dub) – Pole Group
11) Furfriend – Endless September (Perc Remix) – Perc Trax
12) Alien Rain – 4A – Alien Rain
13) Blacknecks – Hotline – Blacknecks
14) Exium – 96.1 Mhz – Nheoma
15) Adam Beyer – Tasty Bits A1 – Drumcode
16) Nitzer Ebb – Murderous (Phil Kieran Remix) – Mute
17) Ritzi Lee – Detect Signal – Belief System Records
18) Perc – Dumpster – Perc Trax
19) UHF – UHF – XL
20) Container – Complex – Liberation Technologies
21) Forest Swords – Onward – Tri Angle