John Tejada's fifth album is his first for L.A.'s peerless IDM glitch-pop label Plug Research. Tejada's previous releases have appeared on the UK's A13 and DeFocus labels, as well as his own Palette operation, and his recent move to Plug Research is a logical one: Tejada contributed to the excellent L.A. techno compilation Dublab Presents: Freeways that also featured Plug Research's finest, Daedalus and Dntel, and he also mastered Soulo's self-titled debut.
Daydreams in Cold Weather features twelve takes on clinically melodic IDM with a smattering of laboratory electro and a faint whiff of drum-n-bass. Given how connected Tejada is to Plug Research, I find it odd that this album is most reminiscent "Artificial Intelligence"-era Black Dog Productions.
What hallmarks a Tejada production is the intricacy with which he arranges each element of a track. His precision is deceptively transparent. It's easy, in fact, to be awed by the overall flow of the track and not to pay close attention to how Tejada has put it all together. A superb example of this is "Young." The track begins as a Xerox of Friend & Dr. Kosmos' version of the Clash's "Career Opportunities" before incorporating that signature bassline into what I imagine a Black Dog/Pete Namlook collaboration might sound like. Likewise, the moody "Shifted" rejects the jauntiness of the opener, "To the West," thereby making an undeniable case for its inclusion in a set by Certificate 18's Norwegian post-drum-n-bass genius, Polar.
Occasionally, though, Tejada slips up. The wistful "Summer Rain" sounds weedy and unsure, with a drum pattern that offers none of the rhythmic bobbing and weaving I've come to expect from his records. Yet at other times Tejada can be as precise as heat-seeking missile-- "Rehearsing Disaster," for example, snatches some of Squarepusher's manic energy and channels it into meticulous rhythmic detailing rather than Tom Jenkinson's freaky jumble.
"Abre Los Ojos"-- no doubt a tribute to Alejandro AmexE1bar's disturbing and provocative film of the same title (the one Cameron Crowe neutered for Vanilla Sky)-- features a heavily processed vocal sample of Tejada's operatic soprano mom, Carmen. Fortunately, Tejada doesn't choose the facile route to success by turning the track into an Enigma or Enya knock-off, instead threading the modified voice through the background out of which acidic squiggles and off-kilter percussion stalk across a mechanoid landscape.
Instrumental hip-hop also creeps into Daydreams in Cold Weather. Tejada's previous album, The Matrix of Us, was the first time I'd heard him divert from his abundant love of uncut Detroit techno. While The Matrix of Us was no Endtroducing, I found Tejada's application of techno's automated sterility to hip-hop fascinating, and Mo'Wax's mystic tongue Divine Styler added hugely to the success of the endeavor. Divine Styler returns here to give his cool power to "The Silence of Us"-- a deliberation on inexpressible realities.
While I can find little to fault Daydreams in Cold Weather, I must say that I expected more from Tejada's first appearance on Plug Research. This isn't so much an indictment of Tejada, more a testament to the originality that Plug Research artists usually provide in spades. Rumor has it that the forthcoming Low Res album, Blue Ramen, will blow minds just as Daedelus' Invention and Dntel's Life Is Full of Possibilities have unequivocally done. Here's hoping that Daydreams in Cold Weather is Tejada setting up base camp before joining the others on their pioneering excursions beyond conformity and into innovation.
