Chainreactor return to industrial techno roots on ‘Melting Point X1’ EP, ‘Permagna’ video out
Chainreactor released the three-track digital EP “Melting Point X1” on August 28, 2026 via ProNoize, with an official video for the opening track “Permagna”.
Three new tracks in thirteen minutes: that is the whole of “Melting Point X1”, the digital EP that Chainreactor released on August 28, 2026 through ProNoize, the Dark Dimensions imprint that has carried the project since 2009. The Düsseldorf industrial techno project of Jens Minor pairs the EP with an official video for the opening track, “Permagna”, which went up on the label’s YouTube channel the same day.
The EP consists of “Permagna” (4:52), “Maybe, Maybe not” (4:30) and “S!ck Mode” (3:35). It is a digital-only release, available to stream and download on Bandcamp, where it is also part of the ProNoize label discography.
‘Permagna’ and the sound of ‘Melting Point X1’
ProNoize presents the EP as a return to the project’s first records. The label text calls the three cuts “raw, hard-hitting, and unapologetically dirty” and says the EP “embraces the project’s original DNA: no gimmicks, no compromises”. Chainreactor has built its tracks on samples rather than sung vocals since “Interlinked” in 2020, after a period with Kay Schäfer as singer, and the label text places the new EP in that line. Side-Line has reviewed each of the last five Chainreactor albums and EPs, from “Interlinked” in 2020 to “War Machinery” in 2025.
“Melting Point X1” is the second Chainreactor release of 2026 after the one-track digital single “Unintentional Presence – Part 2” on April 24, and the first EP since “The Essence” in 2021. It also continues a direction Side-Line noted on the last album: the “War Machinery” review described Minor as circling “back to his roots – delivering raw power through a perfect fusion of Dark-Electro, Industrial, and Rave”, with spoken-word samples in place of vocals. That twelve-track album, which includes “No Apologies”, “Roar”, “Go”, “Kalt” and “Unendlichkeit”, was the tenth in the Chainreactor catalogue.
ProNoize is the harder electronic arm of Dark Dimensions, the German label group that also runs Scanner, and it has released every Chainreactor album since the 2009 debut. Its Bandcamp catalogue now lists 86 releases, and the new EP is sold there as a single digital download rather than as part of a physical edition.
About Chainreactor
Chainreactor started in 2009 as the solo project of German producer Jens Minor. The debut album “X-Tinction” came out on ProNoize the same year, followed by “Insomniac” (2011), “The Silence & The Noise” (2013), “Mass Driver” (2014), “Dirt” (2015) and “Decayed Values” (2017), all on the same label. Kay Schäfer joined as a second member and singer during that stretch, and a “Rare Stuff & Remixes” compilation collected loose tracks in 2017. Minor mixes hard techno, power noise, EBM and trance elements into a club-oriented industrial sound that he has called “a testing range where I can put all the influences of music that I like to something new” in a Side-Line interview.
The seventh album, “Interlinked” (2020), dropped vocals again in favour of samples, a decision Schäfer, who had become a full member and the singer on the preceding albums, explained in that interview: “Chainreactor is about creating a certain atmosphere and feeling and this is done through the music itself and not through lyrics.” Videos for “Interlinked”, “Grey” and “The Wicked” accompanied that twelve-track album. The EP “The Essence” followed in 2021, then the albums “Techno Body Device” (2022), “Venom” (2023) and, as a solo project once more, “War Machinery” (2025), the tenth Chainreactor album. The digital singles “Welcome To The Deep” (four tracks) and “Destroyer Of Worlds” (two tracks) followed in 2024, then “Roar” and “30 Ghosts 2K25” in 2025, all of them on ProNoize. “Melting Point X1” follows “War Machinery” by a year and returns to the format of the project’s early, sample-driven records.
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Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
