- The DC lynchpin delivers a regal and atmospheric techno EP.
- Tara Rodgers is no stranger to techno—she's been in the game for decades—and you can hear that expertise in "Heat Lightning." There's a funky sleight of hand to the way the hi-hats seem to duck and roll between the kick drums that you can't really teach. It's the kind of thing you learn after years of making and listening to techno, absorbing the music into your mind and body. This effortless feel defines Rodger's new EP for DC label 1432R, full of warm, soulful techno with a distinctly human touch.
Rodgers coos gently over "Heat Lightning," as well as the opener "Undecagon," where on-beat sharp intakes of breath morph into sighed, wordless vocal phrases. This could sound hopelessly cheesy in someone else's hands, but it adds a wonderful contrast with the song's clanking metallic beat, which is pretty groovy in spite of how rigid it feels at first. The tracks on the flipside focus on misty synths that borrow the texture and feel of dub techno. "Strawberry Moon" balances its floaty synth lead with jackhammer drum fills, and it's almost weightless, buoyed on by bursts of drums and a lovely squiggly synth towards the end that feels equivalent to an artist doodling on paper. Dimensions ends with the Detroit-via-Amsterdam strut of "Golden Hour Life On Mars," which reminds me a bit of Redshape at his best: lush but still somehow minimalist, only a few elements all locked into each other, techno that feels both perfectly functitonal and still otherworldly.
Tracklist01. Undecagon
02. Heat Lightning
03. Strawberry Moon
04. Golden Hour Life On Mars