Ghostly International is wonderfully successful at pushing the most ambitious descendents of the techno and electronic sounds born in Detroit, regardless of how those creations leave the music’s underground club roots behind. Meanwhile, the Spectral Sound imprint was tasked with providing a home for beats that stayed in darker places and made their homes in the still thriving underground techno scene. At ten years old, Spectral is now certainly an institution in its own right, and the label-head Ryan Elliott-curated Document is here to provide a showcase for both the artists who helped make the label what it is and those pushing to into it future.

There’s no one specific style on offer here with the dark and deserted landscapes of Hieroglyphic Being’s “Got No Place to Go” presented alongside the dawning tech-house grooves of Ryan Crosson’s “Don’t Look Further” and the punishing beats of “Protolanguage” from Mike Parker, but that says a lot about Spectral’s determination to avoid locking into one formula. When it comes to jacking beats, “On Time” from James T. Cotton takes things down a classic route with stuttering drum and clapping hands, while Bodycode’s “I’m Holding On” is a refined and modern take on the choppy beats that straddle the divisions between techno and house. Chicagoan Kate Simko delivers techno at its deepest with “Zhivago” a wonder of mutating rhythms, elastic synths and distinct timings.

Meanwhile Spectral co-founder Matthew Dear shows up twice. First his Audion guise offers “Just Me” which proves to be a highlight with burbling synth chirps and steady beats. Next he shows up under his own name, adding vocals to Seth Troxler’s “Hurt” which shows up here in the form of Martinez’s “Dark Soul Remix”. Starting out as just a whisper rising from the drums, Dear eventually comes into focus delivering a soliloquy about pain atop the restrained groove that only briefly unleashes a melodic assault to cool the harsh words. That’s kind of the way it is with Spectral; dark moods occasionally interrupted by abstractly captivating beauty. Document is aptly named, as this collection is all about showing off the many ways the label finds to achieve this goal.

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