He’ll probably never make anything quite as astounding as ‘The End Of It All’ ever again, but John Tejada is still a name that worth keeping an eye on. Not least for the fact that he’s probably one of electronic music’s biggest chameleons, and his consistently inconsistent genre hopping remains the hallmark of his creative output. ‘The End Of It All’ remains a majestic achievement, probably because it is the one time he’s successfully married all of the elements in his head into one mind blowing, ever evolving and utterly original song. He’s also been known to flirt with the odd relentless club banger sound too, with ‘Sweat On The Walls’ no stranger to bringing a house down, and eh, being a particularly apt name for a track.

He’s back with a brand new album, the soon to be released ‘Parabolas’, on Kompakt (Highbrow, I hear you say) A quick initial listen is pretty disappointing, and confirms the notion that genre hopping isn’t neccessarily a good thing at all. This means mediocrity lurks at almost every corner. This is probably because the whole thing seems like your listening to a poor man’s Pantha Du Prince record, or a cheap knock off. Sometimes the similarities are just plain staggering. I knew minimal was beyond trendy at one point, and M_NUS was essentially a fashion brand, but I never thought it would get so jaded it would see the day of spawning tribute acts…

But Tejada is still very respected, for good reason, and always has his moments. Parabolas is no different. It is worth checking out, mainly for the first two tracks. ‘The Dream’(above), is an impossibly haunting, atmospheric piece. Its also probably the most original bit of the album. Custom built for a soundtrack, it has the ability to probe you for introspection. I lambasted the likes of Nicolas Jaar and James Blake before for making a pretentious sparse soundscapes. Well lads, this is how you do it. Oddly simple with a few elegiac piano keys, yet completely ethereal and emotive. Can’t help thinking it would slot into a sci fi environment either for some reason, a la Event Horizon or Alien, but eh, maybe thats just me. I don’t even know if thats a bad thing or good thing. Put it this way, I suppose he probably didn’t have to ponder for too long on coming up with a title for the track.

Farther and Fainter is also excellent, even though its probably one of the most incriminating examples of the Pantha Du Prince sound being ripped off, its still an excellently produced and flowing track in its own right, retaining a hint of the atmospherics he’s been known for, and we can’t take that away from him. Lets just say, its a really good homage. Homages can be good too, right? Link for ‘Farther and fainter’ is below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGkSajmBpRc

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