rod modell: captagon

Tresor Records welcomes Rod Modell to its catalog with the release of his new album Captagon. Rod Modell needs no introduction, his various projects render him a master of techno. In repetition and barely noticeable change, Modell re-sculptures perceptions. His sound-design echoes cinematic ethereality, where ferric artifacts slam against percussion, rusty delays filter observation -- the resulting web is a complex, radiating ambience that etches a natural ebb-and-flow. Transformative sounds alight from the outset, "Triangulation" recalls flickering harmonies and grains, a tectonic swipe. Fast-paced dub techno emerges in "Reiki", the disorienting clangs suggesting a step away from his recent ambient excursions. "Ito" crunches the pulse further with insistent noise, into soaring epiphanies of darkened transmissions. Modell singularly uproots standard sonic hierarchies of techno production, crisp static as forceful as his beats, a provocation of rhythm and noise. Unceasing in its fast tempo, "Jade" is trademark Tresor business -- the seismic sub-sonics underpin a momentous drive, with reverberated vocal inflections disfiguring warped, dancing materials. "Scrawler" is upfront and direct, a slamming groove and swaying chords di using ethereality. Enter vast chambers of smeared minimalism. Where Modell's recent releases had indicated a priority for ambient sounds, this new album extends Modell's essential vision within techno. Closing track "Air-Port" shows Modell at his most crucial best -- an ethereal colossus of sub-bass weight and morphing geometry.