The Horn :: Troglodyte Tracks (Self Released)

Steve Horn returns with Troglodyte Tracks, a taut, hard-hitting set of electro-funk cuts that dig into the roots of machine music while driving it forward with grit and purpose.

Rooted electro with forward torque

Steve Horne, architect of machine funk at its earliest inception, releases his latest set of wiry, hip-wrenching, face-spankin’ electro-tek-funk workouts under the banner Troglodyte Tracks. Known to many from the ashes of Jedi Knights and the Global Communications/Evolution imprint axis, The Horn has persisted in offering the diaspora of electronic music a humble, home-grown, nuanced oeuvre that quietly instructs in the art of the thing without ever seeming to try. There’s an erstwhile authenticity at play: these tracks push and push and push toward their own potential, leaving a breathless sense of complex simplicity in their wake.

Horn’s music has always carried an earthiness in its sound palette. Whether or not it’s forged on ageing analogue gear you might have to kick into obedience is irrelevant—it sounds like it is. The roots are planted in firm soil. Across the record, arpeggios coil and unspool while synth pads elevate and tension builds in steady crescendos before dropping into kicks, thumps, bumps and grinds. This is classic electronic P-Funk refracted through decades of machine discipline and UK-rooted futurism.

“Moribundo” opens chest-puffed, sleeves rolled, all pneumatic drums and flexed bass intent. “Me Time Between Failures” tempers the drive with introspective circuitry, its melancholic undertow suggesting resilience rather than defeat. Computer worlds and dirty low-end scan slick terrain in “Presbyopian Dub,” a track that peers at modernity through blurred lenses, refracting groove through dubwise spatial play. “Juxtaposer” lives up to its name, smashing tech-punk abrasion against elastic funk propulsion. “Takedown” pops and fizzes with click-and-bleep DNA traceable to early Warp blueprints—precise yet playful, machine logic with human swing.

Flipping console-era nostalgia into something kinetic ::

“Ductwork Acid” tunnels deep, its corrosive 303 lines writhing through metallic percussive frameworks like pressure building in unseen pipes. It’s less homage than continuation, acid as living organism rather than museum piece. “Fool’s Errand” flips console-era nostalgia into something kinetic: 8-bit tonalities spiral around a muscular house chassis, suggesting the folly of chasing ghosts while dancing with them anyway. “Truckloads” carries that forward with a distinct 1991 Green Album–era Orbital lilt—those wide, horizon-stretching synth arcs and rolling break-driven momentum—reimagined here for tighter, sweat-slick rooms without losing that early-rave sense of possibility.

“Stump” hits at peak-hour velocity, all piston-kick insistence and rubberised bass, engineered for bodies losing themselves in repetition. Then “Endolymph” provides recalibration: softened pads, submerged rhythms, a sense of inner-ear balance restored after pressure and propulsion.

Taken as a whole, Troglodyte Tracks feels like both excavation and propulsion: a digging into the bedrock of electro, acid and early rave while simultaneously driving their mechanics forward. Horn doesn’t trade in nostalgia; he reactivates circuitry, reminding us that these forms still have torque, humour and emotional weight. It’s rooted yet restless, muscular yet thoughtful—house music 2.0 rendered with craft, conviction and a clear sense of lineage, still moving, still evolving.

Troglodyte Tracks is available on Bandcamp.