Ray Kajioka resurrects a set of demos spanning across a 20-year history as a techno musician, proving his work is timeless as it is evocative on his latest “Nord Hammer” EP released on the Berlin imprint Frameworks.
A good deal of Kajioka’s work can be described as having a reverence for the deeper aspects of Detroit techno and soul, but with a very technical Berlin techno twist. At first, some of the synth work might be overpowering for some and may hint at a synthesizer deluge reminiscent of Kajioka’s Kanzleramt label mate Diego Hostettler.
Indeed, a couple of these tracks, such as “Nord Hammer” and “Drive” might feel as though they might fit well on the Kanzleramt catalog from the time of CDs… remember those? But once you start listening into the foggy chords, you will start to hear some deceptively simple lines and eloquent phrasing.
On the title track, “Nord Hammer”‘ is indeed carried by what we can assume would be the heavy chorded and woody-sounding Nord Lead: a synth whose fizzy top lines hide the rides that provide tension in the track and come on strong and hard before you know it. There’s a heavy weight there, even though the top end is so airy. Possibly a good deal of this weight is carried by the jazzy modulated secondary synth that appears in the middle of the track. Most of the chords in the synths are modulated, and when the deeply buried secondary synth starts to mess with overall frequency cross modulation, the more you listen to them, the more your brain gets twisted up in the interconnecting lines. When it comes time for the final break, you’re just lost; it’s very intense.
“Drive” serves up a similar vibe conceptually, but what stands out as unique on that track are the slurry rides and slushy cymbals for a fun treat. The timing in the modulation there is strange, subtle and deceptively heady. If we’re to listen here as the center point of the track, everything else moves around that path. But if we’re focusing on the rhythmic midrange drive synth, the top is having a conversation while the deeper chorded synth moves around in the mix. It is as if they were friends talking and one of them has a dog on a leash sniffing around in the park.
“Lite One” has a center focus based on the bopping, buoyant toms of the 909. Their energy and positive attitude in their timbres set up the enthusiastic synths as well as the accompaniment of bright and silvery cymbals. Shifting gears, “Focus” leans into the throaty chorded bass groove, rhythmic interaction, and little interstitial ornamentations of delay as well as reverb sends. While the majority of the track is open and grooving, it relies mostly on the rides to carry the tension. It is more or less a great B-side track to mix for the EP.
The “Nord Hammer” EP comes together with a lot of elements that are engineered to train your ear on, with lovely chorded ideas and synth lines that feel intensely complex upon first listen. But as we’ve mentioned, these really aren’t overly complicated concepts. When you break down what’s going on here, there’s just a few elements at play at any given time. Just the way that they are put together is unique, and it is something that hasn’t found its equal in techno music’s history. Nobody has come close to copying these concepts, so they will continue to be fresh and new for years to come.
The only giveaway about their place in techno music’s history may be the seemingly obligatory use of the long ride carries, which was then supremely common, but is a uniquely identifiable chapter of what made techno what it was back in the day. As such, people have found that adding them to their techno at present is one more way of bracketing off the genre and calling it specifically techno. In some ways, time has come full circle to allow music like this to be a prime release in 2025. It’s a literal calling card for the artist flexing an original style all his own back in the day. For the masses, who haven’t been there along with Ray Kajioka through the years, it’s time to catch up.
-Sean Ocean
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