Matthew Dear is from Texas, but I think he would have had to move to Detroit, his current home, to make his music. It must be true that techno that sounds like “Grut Wall” is only allowed to be made in Detroit. If Dear had done it in Dallas, the music police (one of the more secretive divisions of the Department of Homeland Security) would have spirited him away to await a trial that would never have happened in the darkest recesses of Guantanamo Bay’s most rat-ridden prison complex. Faceless members of some elite, black-ops torture corps would, just as I now write, be attaching electrodes to his… I think my meaning is clear. Matthew Dear is just so damned Detroit.

Dear produces monstrous lower-tempo techno tracks featuring vocals, dispassionately spoken by Dear, that rely on simple pop song structure. The backward beats and super-intense, though simple, rhythm structures give the listener the impression of riding in an out-of-control submarine - pressure building all the time - while being sung to by the king of apathy. Dear’s music is beautiful. It is all that I said before, but it presents an impenetrable womb of sound - something only the best techno and house can do - where all is safe. It’s a padded, out-of-control submarine with plenty of oxygen and thick walls. And there’s a friendly and erudite giant squid wh has nothing in mind but saving your ass at the base of the abyss… Enough, already! “Grut Wall” is an almost perfect example.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites