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This is BALIMORE — written, produced and mixed by Steven Ran Cohen. Full tracks, no sign-up, no download. Four minutes is enough to know whether this is your sound.
- Lane
- High-tech minimal
- Tempo
- 124 – 128 BPM
- Signature
- Tiny percussion, playful lead lines
- Vocals
- None
Two things stated plainly before anything else. This page is not affiliated with the artist it discusses, is not endorsed by them, and sells nothing — no tickets, no merchandise. For shows and tickets, go to that artist’s own official site or their announced ticketing partner and nowhere else. And my information has a cutoff: labels, line-ups and rosters move, so read every name here as a direction to search in rather than a current fact.
What the label actually describes
Percussion built from very small sounds. Clicks, blips and short synthetic ticks instead of sampled drums. The groove is assembled from dozens of tiny events rather than four big ones, which is where the “minimal” half comes from — not fewer elements, smaller ones.
Lead lines that behave like riffs. Not pads, not arpeggios held under a filter: short, repeating, almost cheerful melodic figures with a clear shape. That is the “high-tech” half — sequencer-written melody treated as a hook.
Space in the midrange. Very little sustained harmonic content, so the mix feels wide and uncluttered even when a lot is happening. It is the opposite production philosophy from the wall-of-chords end of melodic techno.
Sets measured in hours. The material is written for long-form performance, which changes how it is paced: ideas develop across twenty minutes rather than four.
Where the lane continues
Stephan Bodzin for melody as the lead instrument; Argy and ARTBAT if you want the same tempo with far more harmonic weight; the minimal and micro-house catalogues if you want to go further in the direction of small sounds.
What to search instead of the name
High tech minimal, minimal techno 126 BPM, minimal techno long set.
And, in the interest of being straight with you
BALIMORE is my own project — I write, produce and mix all of it myself as Steven Ran Cohen. I am not going to claim it belongs beside the name at the top of this page; that artist has spent years in rooms I have not played. What I will say is that it is built in the same lane with the same arrangement logic, the player above is free, and four minutes will tell you more than any comparison I could write.
BALIMORE sets
Continuous 20–80 minute mixes, written, produced and mixed by Steven Ran Cohen.
- Best Hits Psytrance 2027 — The Last Light1:20 · psytrance
- No Borders After Darkafro & latin
- Techno House Best Mix 2026 — Project Xpeak time
- Tech House Mix — Time To Shine Againtech house
- YouTubeplaylist
Questions people actually ask
What is high-tech minimal?
A strain of techno around 124 to 128 BPM built from very small percussive sounds — clicks and ticks rather than sampled drums — with short sequencer-written melodic riffs as the lead and very little sustained harmony.
Is high-tech minimal the same as minimal techno?
It grew out of it. Classic minimal techno strips elements away; high-tech minimal keeps a lot of elements but makes each one tiny, and adds a clear melodic hook.
What artists sound like Boris Brejcha?
Stephan Bodzin for melody as the lead instrument, and the wider minimal and micro-house catalogues for the small-sound approach. ARTBAT and Argy sit at the same tempo with much more harmonic weight.
Why are these sets so long?
Because the material is written for long-form performance. Ideas are paced to develop over twenty minutes, which does not work in a four-minute edit.