Do you need an auditory reset? Ears burnt from the night before? Deepchord has the cure for your ailments. This week’s hands-down, must-have release for Dub Techno, titled “Functional Extraits”, comes to you from Detroit’s own Deepchord, aka Rod Modell, and the Soma Records camp.
If you’re a long-term Soma fan and have been regularly having your hair blown back by their recent output, then it’s nice to see that they still embrace the deeper parts of their catalog with “Functional Extraits” from the undisputed, modern Dub Techno master, Deepchord. This is the first EP from a longer album also due to be released on Soma, titled “Functional Designs.” The selections here are for DJs but also serve as a stopgap for those who’ve been seriously craving some DeepChord since his 2018 release of Immersions. It’s not that Rod Modell hasn’t been busy since then. He’s released under his own name on the Tresor imprint with the 2019 album “Captagon” and collaborated with Marit Wolters on the 2020 Ambient album “Cocoon”. But it has been while since the warm, soothing, noises-filled soundscapes of Deepchord have been brought back to the ears of his fans everywhere.
That Deepchord sound hasn’t been touched in a long time, since it has reached creative homeostasis and reached a level on par with the Basic Channel and Mauritzio releases that seemingly could’ve been made yesterday but were made some 27 years ago. This is also because beyond other Dub Techno artists, the genre has nothing else to compare itself to and never follows trends. Similarly, Deepchord’s music is also without comparison. Nobody can seem to touch Rod Modell’s work conceptually, and each Deepchord release is a flex on what the characteristic, signature sound should be. Some of his most recent, harder Techno explorations, like in the track “Mapping” possibly, as the name implies, take characteristics of the Deepchord concept and map them into his own version of harder Techno. Though this is also in the realm of Basic Channel taking seemingly hard-as-nails tracks and washing them out until they become really chill versions of the originals—something that Aphex twin has done in the entirely opposite sense with his “Classics” album. Aside from this, there’s not much change or even a need to reinvent the Deepchord wheel.
This is all very good, since if you’re looking at the body of Deepchord’s work and you absolutely need more, these warm and soothing atmospheres with anti-anxiety driven kicks and bass patterns will definitely be something you reach for. It’s something new to sidle up against his beautifully calming Auratones release, groovy Ultraviolet Music album, and the indispensable ear-cleansing “20 Electrostatic Soundfields.”
If you’re like one of these people who simply can’t get enough of Deepchord and have had it become your default music tranquilizer of choice, then this “Functional Extraits” EP is for you. Keep an eye out for the forthcoming Album “Functional Designs” due to drop on September 30th.
-Sean Ocean
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