Conrad Van Orton brings to life a sleek, deeply cinematic, and intimate dub techno release for Mitsubasa that plays like the intellectual intimacy felt in an Eric Rohmer film.
Rome born Andrea Zanchetta, aka Conrad Van Orton, is a producer whose life and music are deeply intertwined. With decades of experience in the music business, including a stint on house arrest that led him to discovering his true musical identity, the music he brings to the table is suspended in the gravity of feeling juxtaposed with a wild style, industrial grit.
With notable releases on Nachtstrom, Schallplatten, Anaoh, Techno Parade, Emerald records, and Key Vinyl, he continues to refine his craft, leaving us to expect more personal, soulful releases that reflect both his technical growth and emotional depth. His latest drop for German label Mitsubasa, the “City Roaming” EP exemplifies exactly this sentiment.
An EP you can easily pop on as your everyday driver, “City Roaming” is a steady groover that feels like walking through a rain-soaked city at night, where neon lights reflect off the pavement and distant synths hum in the background. It’s both intimate and cinematic, evoking a world where technology and emotion intertwine—futuristic yet nostalgic, robotic yet deeply human. The coldness of the electronic elements contrast with the warmth of their melodies, creating a bittersweet tension that lingers like a dream half-remembered. It doesn’t require stamina or hyped-up energies to feel good on the ears. It delivers reliable, good feeling dub techno for anytime.
While the powers that be force-feed us movers and shakers pitched for the 30-second make-or-break algorithm, Conrad brings us something much deeper. Relying heavily on the grandeur of hope and heartbreak and the marrow of experience, this EP will make your arm hairs stand on melodic anticipation alone. The push and pull of atmospheric resonance, the delayed gratification, the shimmers of sound sparkling like newly found land in the distance, it all lends to the drama and complexity, breathing life and big payoffs in sentiment.
Drenched in mystery, melancholy, and brooding intensity, “City Roaming” EP takes the cold, detached electronics of synth and fuses them with cavernous, palpable weight. The tunes pulse with deep, reverb-soaked basslines, hypnotic drums, and eerie, ethereal synths that drift like shadows through a neon-lit fog evoking themes of solitude, introspection, and dystopian longing.
First to sprout, the title track “City Roaming,” is light and airy yet calculated and on time, creating elemental changes on the 4 and staying strict to the bounce. The delivery of “You Can’t Run in Dreams” feels like a spectrum of sound waves reflecting the sunset back at you and letting you bask in the glory of the rays. It’s a visceral tune for moments on the dance floor that require depth, serving a palette of kaleidoscopic sound, to help you melt away the worries and relish in the feeling of simply being alive—something to create true dance floor magic at just the right time. “Asakusa Station” hands over consistent waves of sound with a hint of dark energy, while “Blossom” embodies muted frequencies and gentle, laid-back arpeggios that guide you to a positive vibration.
Closing it out in a noteworthy, avant-garde fashion, “Can You Run In Dreams?” absolutely steals the show. A killer and deeply atmospheric closing to this album, it leaves you wanting to know the rest of the story it has begun. It creates an all-encompassing note to the entire collection, seeming to blend elements of each tune for what feels like an epic grand finale akin to meeting the final boss of a video game for the last showdown before ascending to a glorious win.
Conrad Van Orton offers a solid representation of both control and chaos, where calculated sequences are disrupted by bursts of raw, melodic emotion. Set to drop on February 14, 2025, it is an album that will make you truly happy to have come across and one that you can keep on rotation.
-Jen Warra
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