Electronic evangelists such as myself may even stick their necks out to say that modern techno music is high art at its peak of visceral effectiveness, marrying artistry and craftsmanship with sheer functionality to create an end product that is capable of stirring the minds, hearts, and feet of even the most casual observers.

A prime example of this would be Berlin’s Ostgut Ton label, whose founders are also the proprietors of the infamous Berghain club. The club itself can even be seen in an artistic light; the unused power station is the perfect structural homestead for the machine music that inhabits its interior, while the Panoramabar upstairs hosts a piece by celebrated German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans.

The label’s latest venture, Shut Up and Dance! Updated, consciously attempts to bring techno closer to being accepted as a form of high art by creating a project that merges the music with a form of dance that has been part of art’s upper crust for centuries—ballet. The highly regarded dancers of the Berlin Staatsballet are the chosen collaborators, and Ostgut have roped in an equally elite cast of producers to provide their soundtrack. Âme, Luciano, NSI (Tobias Freund and Max Loderbauer), Sleeparchive, and Luke Slater (as the 7th Plain) were cherry-picked to submit compositions, and given no instructions as to how the music should sound. A different choreographer worked with each track, and the dancers will then perform to the music at the Berghain.

NSI open with “Bridge and Tunnel People,” possibly a comment on suburban ballet fans traveling to the industrial locale of Berghain to sample the delights of the city’s vibrant techno scene. The track begins with a section of typical orchestral instruments—a delayed harp, looped string section, and a cascading piano—slowly building in intensity until the sounds are enveloped by rumbling bass and chaotic synth stabs that usher in the beat. The fourteen-and-a-half minute piece continues to develop throughout, delicately segueing between and merging the sounds generally associated with both the techno and ballet worlds, and as such, is a perfect opening gambit for what is to come.

After the turbulent synergy of the opener, Sleeparchive contributes what is (as expected) the most resoundingly minimalist track of the five, conjuring a slowed-down techno track that works its way from low frequency throbs and buzzes to wonky high frequency synth loops, removing them a minute from the end to give the music a sense of spaciousness that is only amplified by the low tempo. Sleeparchive’s sparse ending provides the perfect ending to flow into the compilation’s centerpiece, Âme’s cosmic micro-houser “Fiori.” As proved with Carl Craig’s ubiquitous remix of Delia & Gavin’s “Revelee” on DFA, a 4x4 kick is a very powerful tool when it’s employed midway through a track, but “Fiori” also demonstrates the efficacy of its removal—reintroducing the introduction’s ingredients now provide respite to the toughened middle section.

Luciano’s contribution, “Drunken Ballet,” injects some much needed humor and light-heartedness. The usual organic swing that underpins his work is accompanied by an intertwining vocal (simply consisting of a male and female ooh-ing and aah-ing) that gives it a childlike, yet strangely sexual feel. Things are neatly rounded off with Luke Slater’s “Symphony for the Surrealists,” unconsciously continuing Luciano’s theme of infancy with a lush, ambient introduction accompanied with bleeps and xylophones that bring a child’s music box to mind. As the title suggests, it has the most in common with traditional classical music in structure and aesthetics, the typical orchestra being replaced with ebbing and flowing synthetic sounds. Slater’s use of intermittent percussion, radio static, detached voices, and eerie electronics throughout the thirteen-minute epic is astounding, and even though only the most adventurous after-hours DJs will be playing it, it definitely marks itself out as one of the best electronic tracks of the year so far.

It’s ironic that by collaborating with an organization that’s as exclusionary as the Staatsballet, Ostgut Ton have created a body of work that will appeal to a much wider range of people than the usual club-based techno album. Whilst it almost certainly won’t be enough to make Berlin’s older ballet crowd journey back to Berghain for one of their usual debauched parties, if it makes a few listeners think differently about techno, then it’s done its job. One thing’s for sure: it’ll make a lot of electronic music fans very happy indeed.