Sven Dohse is one of those techno artists that has been making music for a long period of time, but unless you're absolutely absorbed in the scene, you've likely never heard of him. He's created full lengths under a variety of names along with remixes for others and some DJ work. Don Shtone is one of the names that he releases music under, and Beware Of The Cat finds him dipping into a dusky underworld of mid-tempo techno fueled with a slew of jazz loops for fuel.

Obviously, Dohse isn't the first person to do this, and he keeps things fairly lighthearted as loads of horn melodies and even some almost cartoonish samples. In many ways, this eleven song, fifty-five minute release reminds me of an album that would have come out on Ninja Tune Records about a decade ago. It doesn't delve into breakbeats like a Funki Porcini album might, and it's not as varied as you might find on a release by DJ Food, but it has a lot of things in common. "Am I Blue" takes some horn melodies and makes them alternately soupy and punchy behind squishy beats before disembodied female vocals make an appearance towards the end while "Rot" drops haphazard keyboard notes and other scattered percussion over a repeating upright bass and drums loop.

There are certainly some excellent moments (like the orchestral swoops and stabs of "Some Feel Fine") on Beware Of The Cat, but largely it feels like any number of releases that have come out in the past decade or so. In some ways, it feels like a nice throwback to all of those things mentioned above, which were seemingly played out so much that we haven't heard much of them lately, but mainly it just feels like a bit of a rehash.