- Another banner entry in a dub techno discography that, somehow, keeps getting better and better.
- In 2019, Rod Modell released an unusual solo album under his given name. Captagon streamlined his lumbering dub techno into a sports car with a spoiler: sleek, fast and aerodynamic. It was a blast of fresh air from an artist who usually seems content in his own dub techno dungeon, rhythms shrouded in the smoke from the tobacco pipe he's holding in every press picture. (Or, more literally, layers of field recordings.) On Functional Designs, Modell recedes back into the comfort of that fog, making techno that feels paradoxically hi-definition and obscured by clouds. His patented blend of underwater drums and urban field recordings remains, and the cover art—a metropolis at dusk—verges on cliché, though that's the line that Modell always toes as Deepchord. When he's on the right side of it, the music is thrilling in a way that few peers of his can match.
Functional Designs seems like an almost self-deprecating title, but it's worth noting that, compared to the prog-rock excess of other releases, this LP's compositions are restrained, even focused. The appeal of so many Deepchord releases is getting lost in the sprawl. Listening is like wandering a deserted financial district at night with no particular destination in mind, soaking in the noises and glints of light around you. But here, most of the tracks are around six minutes long, with discreet beginnings and finishes. The quick fadeouts, while jarring, don't allow the listener to become complacent with the music's womb-like heartbeat, instead emphasizing the contours of each individual composition. As one of Modell's most compartmentalized albums, Functional Designs is also, somehow, one of his most cohesive.
The LP has some of Modell's most striking tracks. "Darkness Falls" has the first kick drum on the album, but the track's details emerge from underneath a curtain of sighing synth, which descends on the rest of the track like a gossamer tapestry falling to the ground. This track has all the requisite Modell textures—grit, fog, rain—with an array of sounds feels both organic and supernatural. "Cloudsat" calls back to the last Modell album with its pacy kick drum, this time under a layer of mist with Burial-esque chords. It feels like listening to a Deepchord album in sped-up timelapse, with hints of what sound like vocoder voices adding shades of ambiguous emotion. The closer "Dressanes" feels more like post-rock than techno, with guitar-like melodies snaking out into an unusually mournful melody.
There are also plenty of bumper Modell moments. The shuffling "Strangers" is a classic Deepchord journey, all pneumatic drums and mysterious rustlings in the peripheries, while "Ebb And Flow" whirrs by in a blur of sound and reverb trails, the drums more of an impression than a concrete sound. This is what Modell does best, and it doesn't sound all that different than how he's done it before, though are some particularly excellent examples of dub techno. It's another incredibly solid album in an almost imperviously good discography. Functional, yes, but that doesn't mean it's not beautiful.
Tracklist01. Amber
02. Darkness Falls
03. Transit Systems
04. Strangers
05. Panacast
06. CloudSat
07. Pressure
08. Ebb and Flow
09. Sun
10. Memories
11. Drassanes