Since he first introduced us to his Kangding Ray alias back in 2006 with his debut album ‘Stabil’, French born and now Berlin-based electronic producer David Letellier has continued to forge a prolific presence, with an impressive backcatalogue of releases on labels including Raster-Noton and Stroboscopic Artefacts. A scant year on from his preceding longplayer ‘Solens Arc’, this fifth album ‘Cory Arcane’ sees Letellier weaving the nine tracks collected here around a conceptual story, that of the fictional protagonist of the title, who “could be seen squatting in the outskirts of different giant metropolises, embracing the mayhem, contemplating the crumbling of a system. The sound of the city, mixed with the music on her headphones, would weave complex rhythms and futuristic textures into a beautifully coloured, pixellated surface.”
While the overarching conceptual conceit isn’t immediately obvious upon listening to the music on its own, there’s certainly a unifying mood and sense of dark-hued motion to these tracks. Perhaps more than anything else, there’s a sense of cold mechanical efficiency here, with Letellier using techno-derived rhythms to create a feeling of relentless moton and nocturnal atmosphere whilst stripping things right down to their essential components. Opening track ‘Acto’ kicks things off in more downbeat territory as broken steely rhythms whir into life against trailing synth pads and bright burbling electronic tones, the presence of muted rumbling bass adding a dark undertone to the serene yet clinically cold landscapes.
‘Dark Barker’ meanwhile builds its momentum around a monotonous stuck techno groove, while buzzing synth surges build against intersecting layers of clicking percussion, the entire track calling to mind some zoetrope effect as it slowly builds into a throbbing rush of flickering textures, before ‘Safran’ sends ricocheting metallic tones coiling around pounding kickdrums and dark, almost EBM-esque bass sequences, evoking a similarly cold sense of single-minded precision to the likes of Surgeon as it rolls along seemingly airlessly. It’s with ‘Burning Bridges’ though that Letellier reveals one of this album’s highlights as distorted and scattered synths buzz against a moody backdrop of deep swelling bass tones and spidery percussion, the broken insectoid rhythms giving way to a lush sense of cinematic sweep towards the end. I’d put ‘Cory Arcane’ down as easily one of the most impressive and consistently inspired techno-centred releases I’ve heard this year.
