Rod Modell

Prolific minimal techno producer Rod Modell, founder of Detroit-based Deepchord Records, releases his first full-length on Japanese label Plop. Modell says that Incense & Black Light is a sonic travelogue through one dark and mysterious night, with each track representing a particular scene moving from dusk to dawn. The synths and percussions throughout the album have contrasting levels of clarity, presenting a spectrum of sound, from crystal clear to muted and strangled. "Aloeswood” starts the album off with a quiet but steady momentum: faint, high-pitched clicks serve as the metronome beneath a swirling, undulating synth. Some tracks are more obviously born out of a dub influence, like "2nd track,” with muffled melodies run through delay filters and finished off with crispy clicks, and DSP static that emulates a thunderstorm. The gradual layering of hypnotic and murky loops, crisp, clean fizzles and dubby bass lines are reminiscent of Basic Channel or Chain Reaction. The final tracks on Incense & Black Light are pure ambient bliss, where the buried beats chug along beneath the surface, barely able to slice through the thick wall of foggy ambience.