Will this Italian DJ/Producer pick up an extra life or is it game over? It’s new post time!

• 

Good Morning to you, my name is Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing about your daily track on the blog because it’s my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! I’m opting for something a little bit different today, as we’re going to explore some of the latest work from Italian Electronic Dance music producer Lorenzo Senni. Describing himself as a “Tireless investigator of dance music’s mechanisms and working parts” on Resident Advisor and “a sadistic scientist that is ripping the spinal cord out of trance and dangling it in front of our eyes” on his Facebook bio, Senni is best known for dabbling in shapeshifting styles of Heavy Techno and Acid House, with further influences in Breakbeat and Power Electronics that can often make his deeply layered beat-driven style feel brash and abrasive. He is also the founder of Presto?! Records, an indie Techno label which houses the likes of Florian Hecker and Marcus Schmickler, along with DJ Stingray and many other artists. His debut album, “Quantum Jelly” was released to a widespread critical acclaim in 2012 and, thus, he signed up to Warp Records in 2016. His latest album release is “Scacco Matto”, his fifth album, which was released on 26th April by Warp Records, earlier in the year. Let’s have a listen to the anthem “Discipline Of Enthusiasm” below.

I reckon it’s fair to say that he doesn’t take his own music that seriously! On “Discipline Of Enthusiasm”, Lorenzo Senni capitalizes on the freeform sounds of a JP-8000 Supersaw synthesizer arp to create a Techno crescendo that builds nicely to a sound that feels akin to a final boss fight of an arcade platformer video game straight from the 1980s, such as Pac-Man or Galaga. A feeling of tension and anticipation is established through a frenetic, chaotic drum loop that dips in-and-out of Breakbeat-style production and distorted strobe effects. The second third of the track fuses in elements of Techno and Deep House, introducing a soft BPM shift with a calming line of synthesized classical sounds. This develops a melodic break that glues the jigsaw pieces together, before the crescendo starts to glitch and the unrelenting opening takes a hold of the picture again. The third, and final, third provides a fuzzing instrumental section that mixes in a slow pace through a carefully nurtured synthesized guitar riff, but the overall line of electronica is still stuttering to the Techno-dominated beat of Staccato lines and small shards of Breakbeat pacing. The overall result of the three sections create a sound that feels very old-school and retro, seemingly delighting in the lack of a futuristic approach. The genre has a niche appeal and the masses of the mainstream aren’t likely to connect with it very easily, but as a fan of techno artists like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher – the latter of which explored a similar style in his latest album – I dig Senni’s abilities in carefully nurturing an overarching feeling of sensory tension, and constructing the release of his crafted anticipation through the harsh electronic bass drop. I don’t want the masses to get it!

• 

Thank you for reading this post! In regards to #BlackLivesMatter, we endorse the peaceful protests on One Track At A Time. Please go and check your local area for good charity causes that help those directly affected by racism and injustice. I’ll be back tomorrow with a look at another recent track, this time from an English Jazz legend who became known to the world as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd., which preceded a successful and prolific solo career that began in the late 1970s and continues to the present day. He published an autobiography, “Memories Of A Geezer”, in 2009. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime