A producer at the height of his specific powers, Developer cultivates the near-complete hypnosis of long journeys or a fevered rest, the whole-body rumble of inflight turbulence and fasten seatbelt signs blinking on, felt from inside a heavily medicated dream.
It’s almost impossible to talk about techno in LA without talking about Developer, who has been a staple on the scene since the early 90’s. His Modularz label, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary, has hosted the work of Truncate, Oscar Mulero, and Silent Servant; among a growing panoply of talents. Developer is one of those producers whose sound is unmistakable: often imitated, but never replicated with the hypnotic nuance he masterfully brings to every release. These parts are so expertly layered that it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what is changing when, as synth and bass lines build to impressive density, each new layer experienced as an essential landmark completing a fully realized sonic landscape: baked in, not peppered on after the fact to add spice to otherwise uninteresting programming. These layers communicate but they do not muddy or obfuscate. Listen for example in “Moment Portraits” for a hushed fragment of organ notes swelling behind the main bassline that perfectly contrasts the central movement of the song. The result is the near-complete hypnosis of long journeys or a fevered rest, the whole-body rumble of inflight turbulence and fasten seatbelt signs blinking on, felt from inside a heavily medicated dream.
As the album progresses, it gains malevolent energy, Oberon’s pagan carnival enlivening with off-kilter and detuned anti-melody lines that pummel on as dark drums and toms fight for attention, understated shakers fall in and out on slowly oscillating currents of low-pass filtration. His songs move and change subtly, lacking the overstated, near-silent breaks or dramatic tonal shifts that define too many of the techno releases put out in the last ten years. The tracks begin almost fully formed, as though they are some discovered artifact of sonic nature, and finish just as abruptly, lacking boring minute long kick and hat only intros and outros (good DJ’s don’t really need these, anyway). There’s a warm, analog quality to the sound that’s a tonic to the ear, nothing harsh or misplaced leaping out to jolt you out of the spell he so expertly crafts inside each track.
Kicks these days can be overwhelmed by the click, but here they often and mercifully sound like that familiar rumble emanating from a rave only a few streets away, low-pass filtered by the corrugated iron of a forgotten warehouse somewhere in East LA; so that it is the body, and not the ear, that first senses it.
-Winston Mann
Link – Bandcamp
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