Los Angeles-based techno producer Inanna apparently first made a name for herself in the late nineties as a high-profile DJ amongst the US garage and 2-step scenes, during which time she became something of a veteran on the touring circuit, playing at large events throughout the US, Mexico and Europe. While she may have first risen to prominence in her home country as a garage DJ however, the two expansive tracks contained on this EP release through Jook couldn’t be any more different. On the A-side, title track ‘Butterfly’ offers up a seven minute glide through clicking Villalobos-esque minimal techno rhythms and sweeping atmospheric ambient pads that manages to deftly fuse a glittering backdrop of bright melodic tones with an underlying sense of brooding tension, courtesy of the ominous minor bass chords that tread beneath, in a manner that particularly calls to mind parts of Alex Smoke’s recent Paradolia album or perhaps Soma labelmate Vector Lovers.
B-side ‘Traces Of The Sun’ meanwhile starts off more subliminal, with gently pulsing kickdrums rising out of a spectral backdrop of trailing ambient pads, before some seriously dubbed-out rattling tones lock into place and power their way beneath layers of manically swirling analogue synth arpeggios and swirling background ambience. While the overall result is certainly an impressive one, the constant use of synth arpeggiation and tweaking soon starts to prove slightly obtrusive, and I was left with the sense that many of the most interesting moments on both tracks occur when Inanna simply lets atmosphere build without any heavyhanded manipulations. Still, the above reservations aside, fans of atmospheric minimal techno along the lines of the aforementioned Soma Records reference points should find much to like amidst Butterfly’s two lengthy tracks.
Chris Downton
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