by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Speaker Music is the work of writer and producer DeForrest Brown Jr., who describes his work as “abstracting Blackness through information overload” or, in the first track, “Black music that sounds technological, rather than music made with technology.” He does this through a combination of live and pre-edited music.

Techxodus is designed as an epilogue to Brown’s book Assembling A Black Counter Culture, or – as he describes it again – as “an extension of the Drexciya Mythos; researching  and reimagining the artefacts and stories of Drexciya with new maps, ideas and music, in particular reflecting on the ‘Seven Storms’, seven albums that came out in quick succession around the death of Drexciya member James Stinson, which seemed to herald Drexciyans in the attack mode.”

What’s the music like?

Brown Jr. sets out the principles behind the album over a single, thickly textured chord – an oceanic drone, if you like, and the ideal way into the album. Gradually the wholeness starts to break up, with muted trumpet and flickering percussion that carries into Techno-Vernacular Phreak. The percussion cuts loose, the harmonies start to wander, and a certain tension is introduced.

The treble lines have a piercing, acidic qualities that Brown offsets with these lovely, deep-dive drones such as the one that starts Holosonic Rebellion. This track grows into a depiction of an uprising, thrilling on one hand but disconcerting on the other. The intensity grows through Dr Rock’s PowerNomics Vision, threatening to spill over as the drumming becomes more insistent and the vocals edgier. Jes Grew brings this to a peak, with thrilling walls of sound from the brass that sound like insistent train horns, broken up by the frenetic drumming. Our Starship To Ociya Syndor returns to the rich drone-based approach, with wordless voices borne on the airwaves beneath shrill sonic signals. The intensity subsides – but only a little – before the scattergun drumming and distortion combine to bring Feenin’ to a coruscating peak. Finally Astro-Black Consciousness returns us to the mood of the opening, journey complete but with the wailing of gospel voices in the middle ground.

Does it all work?

It does – because Speaker Music has a style all of his own, a fascinating intersection of experimental jazz and techno that proves difficult to break down. New technology provides part of the thrill, but also a hidden menace.

Is it recommended?

It is indeed. Techxodus is a powerful and highly emotive listening experience, which only grows in stature the more you hear it.

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