- Hard-hitting but expansive techno from one of Philadelphia's most talented producers.
- The name of estoc's 2021 release, Blend Queen, is an apt description of the Philly-based producer's musical acumen. Her hard-edged productions build bold new shapes out of existing raw material, with a glimmer of irony mixed into the ferocity. Her famed mashups, for example, might interest anyone who has ever wanted to hear a hyperpop-swaddled coupling of Creed and hard techno producer Gabber Eleganza, or a big room trance edit of any of The Fray's cheesy anthems. One 2022 estoc edit, splicing "Macarena" and Tiësto, moved one commenter on SoundCloud to describe the rework as "a one of a kind abomination."
But estoc's music is more than hardcore absurdist fluff. Its brutal and often ridiculous style serves as a fortress against cultural hegemony. In a 2017 interview for The Astral Plane, she explained the intent behind her popular DJ tools: "This idea of creating a tool to defeat those with more power and protection than you is really appealing to me, as it fits into the narrative of anti-fascist and anti-imperialist ideology," she said. "Being able to look at what seems like insurmountable odds and coming out ahead with the right tools."
estoc's repertoire challenges the belief that mashup culture is low culture. In fact, it goes even further, inviting us to engage more the ideological concepts that upholds these tunes. Her debut album, Serenity, veers away from her previous mashup work, and includes original vocals as well as shadowy, beatless tracks that exist worlds distant from her usual maximalist leanings.
This doesn't necessarily mean her sampling gifts are entirely put to waste, though. On "Exploratory," crashing glass FX recalls mid-'10s deconstructed club and intergalactic synths set the stage for vocal samples from Smile's "Dream Of Heaven" to swing in. On "SYMPHYSY", the well-worn vocals of Interactive's classic "Elevator Up & Down" are stripped from its agreeable '90s hardcore origins and transplanted into seething techno. A riot of rave sirens and slices of the original release's iconic lyrics propels the track forward until the levee gives way, as estoc unleashes a torrent of kick drums.
Sometimes the missing ingredient needed to make a good techno record a phenomenal record is as simple as a vocal sample. With techno as unforgiving as the tracks on this album, vocals contribute a human element that allows listeners to come up for air before descending once more into inferno. One of the album's best songs is "Serenity," where Montreal artist Odile Myrtil fully realizes estoc's fierceness with her impossibly cool and ambivalent sneer: "I'm tired of listening, you should listen to me / Been nice enough now, it's my time to be mean." The backing is sinister, but in the way a playground singing game is—there's a vocal motif that sounds like it's been excavated from the closing minor key chanting on "This Is Halloween."
On another impressive collaboration, "Bloodhound," a sword slices through the air before New York artist Von coldly intones, "I'm a new Bloodhound." Synths sizzle, forceful drums pick up and Von's voice is deepened into a ghastly growl. It's the kind of song you wouldn't want to be at the receiving end of.
These are tracks best enjoyed within dim-lit bars, between sweaty concrete walls and on the scuffed dance floors of subterranean techno lairs. The kicks on Serenity are aggressive, the build-ups feel like they're ascending ten feet into the air and the most incandescent of its tracks are pitched above 160 BPM. But like any practiced DJ, estoc knows that there will inevitably be moments when dancers leave the floor to smoke a cigarette, linger aimlessly by the bar or drown an acquaintance in meaningless conversation. There are also songs to soundtrack these moments. Lacking kicks and swimming in sci-fi arpeggios, the LP's cinematic opener "Protocol" could easily find another home as a video game score. It feels incorrect to listen to the ominous, contemplative drone and mysterious rustling in "Deprival" from my home office desk chair—it would be better absorbed in the relaxed intimacy of an ambient room.
The hard techno scene, once dominated by white cis men, has become a space for openly queer and trans DJs to make their presence known. estoc is part of this growing wave of trans DJs and producers that are drawn to rough, fast and sometimes cheeky techno. "We have created more tools and ability to lift each other up and carve out space for people not in structurally dominant social groups," she said in that Astral Plane interview. "I do also see so much of this music as a conduit through which we can express our rage, trauma and pain." All of that emotion feels palpable in Serenity. It is a record that feels like a furious call to action, and sounds like pent-up frustration that finally has somewhere to go.
Tracklist01. Protocol
02. Exploratory
03. Serenity feat. Odile Myrtil
04. Linked
05. Dissolve
06. Symphysy
07. Deprival
08. Submersion
09. Bloodhound feat. Von
10. Shutter
11. Empyreal Shroud feat. Alex Compton
12. Submersion