144
Everyone’s got their limits. Mine start rather early when it comes to how fast I like my Techno. Somewhere around 130 my eyebrows start to move upwards, and when things move beyond 140 I tend to walk away. It’s not like I’m too old for this kind of speed. It’s always been like that, even when I was half this old.
And yet, here I am, letting Rod Modell go on for a good half hour at a hundred and forty four, the headphones staying right where they are, a nice sense of calm floating inside me. Sure, it’s not the hammering kind of 144. It’s nicely subdued, the kick gently pressing rather than punching, but it’s not like it wasn’t there. Somewhere during the third minute of “Immersion I” the beat slowly rises from somewhere deep below, taking its time to surface, the slowness of its approach probably being the secret of how your mind never fully realizes that things have just moved from Ambient to Techno.
Dub Techno, to be a little more precise. A form of music that loves to create plenty of space to fill with all kinds of electronic wizardry that will make you think you’re strolling on another planet, traveling through space, navigating unfathomable oceanic depths or walking through iridescent mists – most write-ups of Dub Techno music are loaded with these kinds of descriptions.
Forgive me for not playing along here. What I actually do find fascinating is that things work differently in the worlds Modell creates as Deepchord. The ambient soundscapes that he lays down for us are the main characters here, contrary to a lot of other music in this genre that seems to put together beat patterns which are then decorated with all kinds of stuff that makes it sound deep and wondrous. Metaphorically speaking, he’s growing trees instead of setting up tree-like structures and stapling leaves to the branches.
It’s best experienced during the phases when the beats start to move back to whatever depth they emerged from, when the soundscapes slowly wash over them and let them disappear like a message written in the sand that will be slowly erased by gentle waves rolling onto the shore, the ocean being the ocean, the message not much more than a memory.
Whether your imagination lets you travel to Atlantis, Mars or Beteigeuze – it really doesn’t matter much, totally up to you and how your mind translates what you hear. Might actually be one place today, a different one next time. “Immersion I” sends you off on a super straight trajectory, time and speed varying on different layers, fast on what’s immediate, slow and floating in the distance, enhancing the sensation of space way beyond the obviousness of how it is created in production.
The basic concept is similar on “Immersions II” – the beat slowly wafting in at the end of the third minute, taking much longer to become a presence, rhythmically a little more dense and complex, with a little more urgency and purpose. But apart from that – it’s an equally magnificent ride.
Lucky me: I was able to score one of the 100 really, really good-looking blue/green splattered represses, on top of the original release. Precious stuff. Price went through the roof immediately after they were sold out. But no, not selling. No way. This one is precious for more reasons than monetary value.
Release for review:
DEEPCHORD – IMMERSIONS – ASTRAL INDUSTRIES – AI-10
Get lucky on a re-release on Bandcamp: Click
Buy it on Discogs: Click