“Black Noise,” the third album from German minimal techno producer Hendrick Weber, who releases music under the Pantha du Prince moniker, is a beautifully composed collection of ambient techno music that serves as a satisfying follow-up to his 2007 masterpiece, “This Bliss.”

Techno is something of a strange genre, one that not many people are very familiar with. When most people hear the word techno, thoughts of glow-stick-armed ravers dancing to “Sandstorm” are likely to come to mind. However, the genre has just as many outsiders creating interesting music as rock music, or even hip-hop.

One sub-genre of techno that has seen a lot of activity in the past decade is minimal techno, which is characterized by its distinctively sparse and repetitive sound, having more in common with ambient music than the type of techno most people have heard.

Pantha du Prince is one of the sub-genre’s most respected producers, garnering much-deserved acclaim for his 2007 sophomore album, “This Bliss,” which introduced his unique and unmistakable sound.

One aspect of Pantha’s music that is most easily recognizable is his use of distorted chime and bell sounds, which shimmer brightly on top of his thinly produced four-on-the-floor techno beats. This sound, used in nearly every track on “Black Noise,” has a delightfully hypnotic effect on the listener as heavily processed bell tones bounce from left to right channel and back again.

The aptly-titled opening track, “Lay In A Shimmer,” demonstrates this effect quite brilliantly. The track is comprised of the fore-mentioned bell and chime sounds, but also features droning, slightly distorted synth-bass sounds, which add a textural element not unlike those employed by shoegaze legends, My Bloody Valentine.

“…Shimmer” is one of Pantha’s more upbeat tracks and functions perfectly as a bridge from where “This Bliss” left off into the sonic experiments found in the middle and last half of “Black Noise.”

One of the album’s highlights is “Stick To My Side,” which features some awesome vocal work from Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear).

The track takes its time building up to a familiar floor-on-the-floor beat before Noah’s reverberated vocals enter the mix. Initially, Lennox’s vocal contributions aren’t that significant but, when the track begins to build further and Lennox’s voice is stuck repeating “what’s up?” in a trance-like repetition, its hard not to get completely lost in it.

“Black Noise,” though a rather lengthy listen (one hour and ten minutes), is a wonderfully composed record from one of minimal techno’s most talented producers and stands as a worthy follow-up to the now classic “This Bliss.”

-Four stars out of five

E-mail the author: Ben Weissenborn