Ever since Mudd Club DJ Johnny Dynell played Ian Dury, the Flying Lizards, and the Slits as a cheeky response to the 1970s’ anti-disco backlash—the guitar music still “had a basic beat, and the basic beat was disco”—dance music and post-punk have only become more comfortable bedfellows. Same goes for techno and other members of the drum-machine music family, from electronic body music to industrial. Such connections have been explored in recent years by crate-digging producers with a yen for abrasive electronics, including Minimal Wave founder Veronica Vasicka, Berlin’s Phase Fatale, Dominick Fernow as Vatican Shadow, and Los Angeles-based producer and graphic designer Juan Mendez, aka Silent Servant. On Shadows of Death and Desire, his second album for Fernow’s Hospital Productions, Mendez skillfully renders the inherent conflict between melodic emotion and cold, mechanical brutality.
A scene elder of sorts, Mendez was raised in 1980s Los Angeles on a well-rounded diet of the Smiths, DTLA warehouse parties, and KROQ. Slightly later in life, he imprinted upon Adrian Sherwood, German new wave, Belgian label R&S’ flagship compilation In Order to Dance, and hearing A Certain Ratio on a vaguely remembered New York City dancefloor. Since then, Mendez has synthesized a distinctive sound that can be found across his many projects. Most probably know him as a member of now-defunct but influential label and collective Sandwell District, featuring techno luminaries Regis, Function, and to a lesser extent James Ruskin and Peter Sutton. Mendez has put out moody and romantic synth music with ex-wife Camella Lobo as Tropic of Cancer and conducted bleak post-punk experiments with Regis as Sandra Electronics. In a nod to his day job as an art director, he has also defined one of the most striking visual aesthetics in techno, for both Sandwell and his retired imprint Jealous God.
Silent Servant’s debut full-length, Negative Fascination, arrived nearly a year after the dissolution of Sandwell District in 2011. “Stasis is death,” their final statement concluded—words to live by for Mendez. For his first LP he charted away from Sandwell District’s expansive, nuanced take on minimal techno, and Shadows of Death and Desire has an even more existential bent: Mendez somewhat cryptically announced that the release is “a product of a significant life change that wasn’t a benefit.” Yet, with seven tracks clocking in at just under half an hour, Mendez doesn’t waste any time dwelling on the past. Where Negative Fascination eased in listeners with a largely beatless, even cinematic introduction, its follow-up cultivates a sense of uneasy gloom from the get-go. Squealing feedback crystallizes into a queasy three-chord churn on album opener “Illusion,” giving way to the slicing kick and house-of-mirrors vocal delay on “Harm in Hand.”
The rest of Shadows of Death and Desire alternates between relentlessly dark propulsion and moments of ambient reprieve. “Damage” comes from the same clanking torture chamber as EBM pioneers Nitzer Ebb’s “Join in the Chant,” pulling taut nerves and tendons that are then allowed to relax as relatively calming—if still ominous—strings float through “Loss Response.” Then it’s off to the races again with the tensely sequenced “24 Hours,” given subtle texture with serrated six-string manipulation in the background. Shadows of Death and Desire ends by powering down through “Glass Veil” into “Optimistic Decay,” its closing track and something of a mission statement for Silent Servant’s vibe. Lobo makes an appearance as the album’s lone guest, adding a haunting aura with indiscernible vocals that recall her main collaboration with Mendez and offset the gnarled guitar squall. This particular back-and-forth between tracks toward the end of the record is especially reminiscent of the unpredictable eddies of calm and rage that could accompany the kind of life-altering event that Mendez has hinted at.
Such emotional resonance is where Silent Servant’s album excels. Where other post-punk-informed techno might value bone-dry wit or referential in-jokes, Mendez isn’t afraid to imbue his music with the kind of heaviness that has staying power, not unlike his childhood influences Robert Smith and Kevin Shields. If Silent Servant sets the bar for the intersection of dance and doom, Shadows of Death and Desire gives an even more promising indication of where it’s headed.
