LUCID DREAM
Recovered Data 95
PH52
Phthalo Recording Co. 1995/2009
10 Tracks. 63mins03secs

Amazon UK: DLD Amazon US: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

The music industry is full of long lost classics, released to almost total indifference before gaining iconic status once deleted from a label’s catalogue, and mythic records which have, for one reason or another, fallen off the release schedule never to be heard off again. As its title indicates, Lucid Dream’s Recovered Data 95 falls into this second category. In 1996, John Tejada, then a new comer on the electronic circuit, released two EPs and an album under the Lucid Dream banner on the now defunct British imprint A13. These however were preceded by another album, entitled Palette, originally due to be released on the same label, yet, before Tejada had the time to deliver the record to A13, they had decided to refocus toward club music, confining Palette to be forgotten. This was until Tejada inadvertently stumbled upon it while digitalizing some old tracks and promptly offered it to Phthalo for their Phthalo Origins series of releases, which aims at unearthing early releases and previously unheard material by contemporary electronic artists.

Born in Vienna, where he spent the first few years of his life with his parents, both professional classical artists, before he followed his mother back to her native California in the early eighties, John Tejada has been sawing techno seeds for over fifteen years now, with releases scattered on labels such as Plug Research, R&S, Multiplex, A13, ~scape or his own Palette Recordings to name but a few. Now a firmly established artist, with many projects under his belt, Tejada rewinds time for a moment to introduce his long lost debut album, renamed, appropriately, Recovered Data 95.

Away from the straight forward techno Tejada is widely known for, Recovered Data 95 collects a series of fractured electronic pieces served by complex rhythmic forms and abstract sound patterns around which wrap often subtle melodies. There are, throughout, deep tectonic shifts which appear to constantly push the beat right at the forefront of the mix, with powerful rounded bass lines propping up the groove while recurring sonic sequences flow freely in between, a process occasionally very reminiscent of Autechre. Doreth for instance, with its rumbling bass, heavy cyclic beat and looped little melody, strongly evokes the pair’s Second Scepe, released that same year, while pieces such as Terzetto or Lightning Scattered Around share common grounds with some of the more gentle tracks from Amber. Yet, this album has a true identity of its own, with beautiful electronic pieces such as the dreamy Cavatina, the irascible Chortle or Trek or the gloomy and oppressive Phobia and Imbroglio showing the great understanding that the young Tejada had of sounds, rhythms and textures at this early stage in his career, and his brazen willingness to push deep into pretty hostile territories to gather some mighty fine electronic moments.

Despite his numerous releases, there have been very few records in John Tejada’s work that have mapped abstract electronica with such elegance and finesse. All the way through, he creates intricate pieces and propels them with powerful complex hip-hop-infused rhythmic structures placed over dense soundscapes. It has taken fifteen years for these recordings to surface, but it was well worth the wait.

4.6/5

John Tejada/Palette Recordings | Phthalo Recording Co.
Amazon UK: DLD Amazon US: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD