A lot of hopes rest on the unlikely shoulders of the nerdish young kid behind Recloose, Matthew Chicoine. As apprentice to Detroit visionary Carl Craig and the lauded tour DJ for Craig’s Innerzone Orchestra project, the talented Chicoine is one of the most promising techno artists to emerge in a culture dominated by 12-inch singles and compilations, and his debut album is one of those rare electronic-music triumphs that works both at home and on the dance floor.

Whereas many producers enlist studio musicians to give their sample- and synth-heavy tracks a forced flourish, the classically trained Chicoine’s best compositions have a jazzy, organic feel that seems more collaborative and inspired. Colin Stetson’s sax blurts and meanders against the frenetically climbing pulse of "Permutations"; Paul Randolph’s elastic bass work anchors the percolating, chain-gang synths of "Up and Up." "Absence of One" glides with a sensual ease as mournful horns and funkadelic bass lines ring against a curtain of bubbly effects. And the jazzbo Chicoine plays to his strengths: rather than submitting to the usually oppressive 4/4 rhythms associated with Detroit techno, he delineates between beats and true songs, crafting 11 playful and sublime tributes to the once-grand potential of techno as a musical form.