Deepchord – Ultraviolet Music

Can only agree with the comments: One of Deepchords best work (he has so many!). I currently sit in the early spring sun on a balcony with good headphones and listening to „Red Sky“ - what a a joy track that is - like the whole LP.
Would love to get this on vinyl…

One of the most influential albums of my young adult life, from the album artwork to the sound. Really cemented my love of dub techno and experimental ambient music. The only problem is that there's no vinyl release. What in the world?

An absolute auditory treat for any fan of Rod Modell (Deepchord) . The first disc is a great warm up for the raw atmosphere and emotion to amp up on disc 2. Modell has this beautiful knack for drawing me into the music on a fine balance of sonic layering.

Praying for a 4xLP vinyl release of this by Soma...

This listening experience continues to develop since the day of its release. I believe this album is easily Rod’s pinnacle masterpiece.

I still wish there was a full vinyl release, but none the less it’s a magical release.

For what it’s worth, “ Voice Of Guyana” is my favorite RM track. It’s really quite the journey…

such a stellar release. coming back to it every now and then and the enjoyment just keeps on growing. Sort of shame its a continuous mix, but then again - sit back and just let the CD play. immersive experience. 5/5

The Track "12th space" is very much like cv313 - Magenta [Reduction] on "Altering Illusions" [Chapter One]
It has the same groovy bass line and the kick is pretty similar.

Great album. Not my favourite from DC though.

Overall a nice production, this is relaxing somehow dark and a bit hypnotic. This is interesting to listen while wandering in the streets at night. tracks here match well with night and rainy atmospheres.

Deepchord emerge with a double album of ULTRAVIOLET MUSIC, starting with the floating static and field recordings of “Visible Audio” before a ghostly tone hums above the dub and hiss snares of “Ambrosia.” The beats for this first section, stay low to the ground, but other percussive elements emerge, like the gurgle of “CMOS Therapy,” but a more familiar return to dub techno emerges on the cool and graceful “Gulf Breeze.” “Red Sky” goes even more uptempo and warm, even as “Sferic” turns chillier. Tribal drumming breaks up the hiss of “Radio Netherlands” as a melody perks in halfway through, ending on the guitar riff the runs through the entirety of “Melange.” “Night Transmission” sounds as if it might be taking a few hints from disco, while “Bogota” abstracts some vocals but puts the track through its paces before it fades and cuts off, somewhat abruptly. On the second disc, “Grundig” brings us back to our senses, much in the same way “Ghost Track” brings us back to our beats. “12th Space” piles on the layers, with the beat almost sounding as if it’s being composited together, but “North Sea” offers to sparkle up the surroundings. “Hyperborea” takes the seas, and “Where Science Meets the Divine” dives deep underwater. “Voice of Guyana” returns to another sonically dense composition, while “A New Consciousness” has a definite strain of tech-house in its DNA. But “The Infinite Now” sets itself squarely in the realm of classic dub techno, with “Mass Digital” pumping up the dub aspect, before “Radionics” ends the album with a sprinkling of brightness over the rhythm. ULTRAVIOLET MUSIC is powerful enough for the entire spectrum.

At this point, Rod Modell, recording under his Deepchord moniker (sometimes appearing with a capital letter ‘C’ in ‘Chord’), has created his very own genre within dub techno – something more than just a few repetitive dubby chords with deep groovy rhythms. Eight years ago (has it really been eight?), Modell paired with Steve Hitchell to honor our ears with The Coldest Season (Modern Love, 2007) as DeepChord Presents Echospace project, and digging even deeper into his catalog, one will uncover Modell’s work back in 1995. Besides The Coldest Season, among my personal favorites is the soundtrack to Silent World (echospace [detroit], 2012), Hash-Bar Loops (Soma Quality, 2011), and Liumin (Modern Love, 2010).

On Ultraviolet Music, Modell collects twenty-one tracks (totaling 2 hours and 38 minutes on a double CD!), that envelope the listener in nearly psychoactive haze, that slowly rises in the air, like a thick smoke from a burning resin, or a cloud from the caterpillar’s pipe. The music is a narcotic excursion, taking a listener along its vapor spirals, dissolving in the sky along with condensation sparkling in the sun. Each track gradually evolves with minimal variations, until one is completely lost with the beat and field recordings, only to finally latch onto a barely recognizable melody, like a familiar image from a dream, before it vanishes into the ether, vacating this reality and plane. If only each piece didn’t end!

Modell’s music has definitely evolved throughout the years. Listening closer, one can almost strip away the pulsating bass and beat and be left with a sonic canvas, painted on a field recording snatched out of some experience, sprinkled with aural colors, flavors and tones. These sampled and manipulated mediums do not go one forever, as some minimal ambient pieces usually do, but instead loop upon themselves, bracketed by the punctuated kick drum. This distinguished approach is precisely what makes Deepchord’s soporific transmission so unique and outside of the genre.

For an example of beatless explorations, check out the 20 Electrostatic Soundfields (Soma Quality, 2013). There is also a recently released three-track EP, Atmospherica Vol 1 [to which, of course, there will be a follow-up], appearing on the very same Scottish Soma imprint [the latter which, by the way, is also flaunting wares from Slam that would happily satisfy the cravings from fans of Stroboscopic Artefacts and other dark techno examinations]. And, if two-and-a-half hours of Deepchord is not enough for you, there is a separate collaboration with Pulshar, titled Undercover, out on AvantRoots which is a pleasant, organic, and atmospheric EP. Ultraviolet Music is highly recommended for fans of everything Basic Channel, as well as Yagya, Fluxion, Maurizio and, of course, cv313.