The Topdown Dialectic project lies at the intersection of clarity and obscurity. The clarity part is self-evident: Most of their rustling, swirling ambient techno has come out on clear cassettes packaged in clear, plastic freezer bags—packaging so minimalist that it doesn’t include titles, credits, or any information beyond the artist name and catalog number.

That’s where the obscurity kicks in, because Topdown Dialectic’s identity is a mystery. This kind of mystique is hardly new in electronic music; it is part of a hallowed tradition that runs from Basic Channel through Burial. But Topdown Dialectic’s facelessness feels specific to the current moment. Trying to trace their trail back to the source, there’s a strong sense of being haunted by the internet’s recent past. They have not tweeted in more than three years. The Facebook page linked from their SoundCloud no longer exists; neither does their Tumblr. A Blogspot account associated with the label behind their debut cassette has gone inactive. It’s a trail of digital breadcrumbs ground down to dust.

That also makes for a pretty good description of Topdown Dialectic’s music. Since at least the release of a 2014 self-titled EP for Seattle’s Further label (it’s hard to know what their 2013 debut cassette sounds like, since it has disappeared from the internet without much trace), they’ve hitched their horse to the grainy, dub-techno aesthetic popularized in the mid-1990s by Vainqueur, Vladislav Delay, and other artists affiliated with Basic Channel’s Chain Reaction label. Topdown Dialectic’s sound is a graphite smear of static, clatter, and hints of whispers: textures of gravel and elastic, shoe polish and sand, all arrayed over a submerged techno rhythm. A loose weave of murmurs and wormholes, the music itself is bathed in mystery, its contours foggy and its provenance uncertain. Dub techno, with its emphasis on circuitry and spring reverbs, is a resolutely analog genre, but here it gets spun through a dizzying digital echo chamber of post-internet obfuscation.