"Worming its way from dark, grainy ambient to thumping, slo-mo dub techno, the album is a flawless exercise in crafting music that assimilates the conditions in which it was recorded."
Before Deepchord was Rod Modell’s dub techno and ambient project, it was the palette for the sonic explorations of Modell and partner-in-crime Mike Schommer.
In 2002, as Von Schommer, the pair wheeled a vast amount of DIY equipment and a monstrous Korg PS-3100 into a dingy motel room in deepest Michigan. The creation that emerged after hours of window rattling experimentation was dc15. The last work they produced together under the moniker, the album is one of the grimiest examples of icy dub techno you are ever likely to hear.
Initially available as an extremely limited Cdr, these 11 cavernous tracks are now available across two slabs of white wax for the first time ever, fully remastered and primed to do untold damage to your reputation with your neighbours. Worming its way from dark, grainy ambient to thumping, slo-mo dub techno, the album is a flawless exercise in crafting music that assimilates the conditions in which it was recorded. You can almost feel the grime on the walls as the record unfolds soundscape after soundscape, particularly on tracks such as ‘untitled 5‘ with its irresistibly dirty groove.
That said, this drugged out trip through murkiest Detroit begins in pretty stately fashion. ‘untitled 1‘ is an almost delicate techno number with graceful organ-like pads that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early POD release, all interspersed with those classic dub elements that Deepchord are so ubiquitous with.
‘untitled 2‘ leans hard into these dub features that Modell and Schommer exploit so well. Fuzzy, syncopated drum patterns and those ever-present chord stabs lifted straight from the King Tubby handbook give the track a distinctly lo-fi feel, before listeners are launched into the 11 minute odyssey of untitled 3. This druggy, warped, and downright dirty journey is characterised with tripped out synths and a slow, deep kick that drifts in an out of consciousness – it is a masterfully constructed example of Deepchord at their best.
After a little respite on ‘untitled 4‘, another warm-bath immersion in blissed-out dub chords and hissing ambience, ‘untitled 5‘ takes that dream state and blows it to pieces in slow motion. Reverb drenched snares and echoing analogue leads build a cavernous space that a gradually building kick soon inhabits, along with a simple but darkly seductive bass. Following up this sludgy hypnosis session, things tighten and lighten up on ‘untitled 6‘ as we enter into the latter half of the record. Here, the twanging synths and echoing subs that overlay pattering percussion sequences represent something almost like (whisper it quietly) melody.
"In its moments of blissful hypnosis, of being lost in epic soundscapes of impeccable design (of which there are many), dc15 also represents a temporary escape from the drudgery of that life."
But enough of that accessible nonsense. ‘untitled 7‘ plunges us back into the murky depths of the motel grime with an exercise in room warping, as proggy synths inexorably creep along your neural pathways. On ‘untitled 8‘ our chord stabs are back, and so are the kicks, but this one is absolutely drowned in delay, and distant rides make this one of the iciest and emptiest spaces we’ve yet encountered, the perfect foil for slipping the listener in the warm embrace of ‘untitled 9‘.
The final track of the penultimate side, this is our most ambient offering yet. Beautifully blissed out melodies, a smoky, silky atmosphere, and a blinking satellite synth lead carries us through the depths of deep space, before ‘untitled 10‘ unloads an ultra slo-mo track, driven along by bright hats over organ-like pads.
The album draws to a close with 14 minutes of the most minimal track on the album, the foggy sleep at the end of the drug-fuelled dub excursion, as hazy morning light drifts through the drapes of the cheap motel room. All chord stabs and massive echoing reverb, crackles at the edge of the sonic galaxy; this is a closer to close down with.
Schommer describes the album as a direct sonic recording of the depression and grit before his eyes at the Crown Motel, directly “mixing the depressing grit and grime of the transient life that was before my eyes” and where “the environment became impregnated into the music much like the stains in the permanently soiled carpets of the motel room floor.”
Whilst this is clearly evident upon listening, the album is as gritty and seedy as the “class A dump” he describes and effortlessly invokes in the music, in its moments of blissful hypnosis, of being lost in epic soundscapes of impeccable design (of which there are many), dc15 also represents a temporary escape from the drudgery of that life.
In dc15, Von Schommer created an album that represents the euphoric escape from the grit and grime of the Crown Motel, whilst simultaneously imbuing the music with the darker world that trip can lead to, and in which the album was born. Throw in the fact that this is a flawless DIY creation that encompasses all the vital elements of Detroit dub techno, and there is only one word that can adequately sum up what this release is – essential.
dc15’ is scheduled for release on 16 September via Deepchord Records. Order a vinyl copy from Inverted Audio Record Store.
TRACKLIST
A1. untitled 1
A2. untitled 2
B1. untitled 3
B2. untitled 4
B3. untitled 5
C1. untitled 6
C2. untitled 7
C3. untitled 8
C4. untitled 9
D1. untitled 10
D2. untitled 11