- The long-time techno producer finds new inspiration in dub on one of his best-ever records.
- Over the course of 25 years, John Tejada has made techno, drum & bass, downtempo and collaborated with everyone from Daniel Bell to Reggie Watts. But it all exists in the same instantly recognizable world. That's what happens when you develop a palette as well-defined as the Los Angeles-based artist: everything you do, no matter how disparate, sounds like you. In her review of his 12th album in 2018, RA's Annabel Ross said, "His solo efforts have been so alike that in places they begin to feel interchangeable." She goes on to say that this isn't a bad thing—which is true—but when you press play on Year Of The Living Dead, it feels like a clean break. While much of Tejada's recent music is a deft melodic synthesis of mid-'90s Detroit and German techno, opener "The Haunting Of Earth" embraces the sparse minimalism of post-dubstep and dub techno. The beat is broken, the snare sounds flung across the stereo spectrum and the whole thing radiates with the seductive energy of dub. It's obviously John Tejada, but the formula has been shaken up, fizzling with the sparkle of the new.
Year Of The Living Dead is Tejada's most relaxed LP in quite some time. The beats seem designed to tickle your brain rather than move your body. The title hints at the stillness of the past year, with no dance floors, no release, just numbing sameness at best, and sickness and death at worst.. The downtime allowed Tejada to explore a whole new array of tools, and so Year Of The Living Dead was made during those early months of the pandemic, all all new equipment. It follows an LP of live hardware jams and keeps the spontaneous feeling of an artist figuring it out as he goes along. But what's most remarkable about Year Of The Living Dead is how Tejada bends this new hardware to his will, incorporating it into a novel sound that retains the soul of his best-known music.
Here Tejada is more concerned with the sway and pulse of dub, from the borderline dubstep of "Eidolon," whose LFO wobbles and ultra-swung drum hits are immensely satisfying, to the spooky broken beat of "Spectral Progressions." When he does go techno, it's still heavily influenced by dub, like "Echoes Of Life," where crystal clear chimes ring out amidst a fog of delay chords. There are hints of the old Tejada here and there, like the melodic, Kompakt-style sound heard on "Abbot Of Burton," whose curdling bassline and ascending melodies are like a rave flashback in a sea of calm. The album cruises blissful from beginning to end, assisted by its short runtime of 40 minutes. In a world of overlong techno LPs, Tejada beckons you to hit replay and savour everything you just heard.
With these new experiments and genre explorations, listening through Year Of The Living Dead floods my mind with reference points: a little Claude Young here, some Mount Kimbie there, maybe even microhouse on the fidgety "Panacea." But what it reminds me of most of is John Tejada himself. The approach is epitomized in the closing track, "Anchorites," which has an irresistible stuttering bassline landing the mood somewhere between early '00s glitch and late '00s dub techno. It's one of those incredibly simple, almost genius touches that you wish you could've come up with first.
Tejada's catalogue is full of these moments. They're the greatest pleasures of his music, and Year Of The Living Dead offers them in a whole new context. At first it feels like a left turn, until all the familiar touchstones of Tejada's music—beautiful melodies, spacious arrangements, sculpted atmospheres—fall into place. One of the pitfalls of being such a consistently great artist is a perceived lack of standout moments, but the inspired, refreshed feeling of Year Of The Living Dead feels like a landmark even for an artist with over ten solid albums in the bag.
Tracklist01. The Haunting Of Earth
02. Sheltered
03. Eidolon
04. Echoes Of Life
05. Spectral Progressions
06. Abbot Of Burton
07. Panacea
08. Anchorites