Rod Modell

(This article’s English version was produced with AI-assisted translation)

Let’s imagine creating a mental scenario that could embody the essence of dub-techno; think of when the genre takes on the ethereal shades of ambient, and it becomes inevitable to associate these melancholies with winter. The image of snow-covered lands becomes a mirror of an inner journey, an introspective drift that finds its visual counterpart in the stillness of the snow and the urban desolation. Rod Modell, always the architect of these sonic worlds, is one of the founding fathers of the genre: a visionary mind behind the seminal Deepchord project, a true polar star of American dub-techno, and the founder of Echospace and cv313, two sonic universes that have, over time, taken on a cult status, akin to Basic Channel, Monolake, and Vladislav Delay.

It’s a fact that Modell’s poetics glorify urban and nocturnal landscapes, shaped through a mosaic of muffled field recordings, endless echoes, tape recorders, and every device necessary to forge club music that maintains only the rhythmic pulse of the club (which is, however, darkened and rarefied). "Northern Michigan Snowstorms", released by 13, a sub-label of Silentes (the same label that published Gigi Masin, Maurizio Bianchi and Francesco Lurgo), represents the sublimation of a nearly thirty-year journey, a concept album that no longer sketches urban solitude but the cold of Michigan, painting the harshness of winter and the warmth of mountain refuges.

The work is a monument to the memory of past seasons, a perpetual murmur of pads and impalpable chords intertwining in hypnotic loops, amidst glacial crackling and subtle, solemn soundscapes ("Snowstorm In Copper Harbor"); it’s as if an ascetic decided to meditate in a valley buried by snow, under a sky that’s been still for an undefined time: every acoustic element is amplified, stretched, wrapped in infinite reverbs. The eight tracks translate this research into a deep breath, a testimony of inner peace, the silent dialogue between a solitary soul and a nature both magnanimous and ruthless. It’s almost as if Stars Of The Lid were playing on a mountain, and the recording includes, in addition to their instruments, the whispers of the snow-covered landscape ("Snowstorm In Blankey Park"). The remnants of techno barely surface, buried and unrecognizable, a faint beat that disappears as the sun sets ("Snowstorm In Brevort").

This pilgrimage is, after all, the natural evolution of Modell’s artistic journey: if in his previous works he explored the relationship with water ("Ghost Lights," 2023) or with the crepuscular urbanity ("Glow World," also 2023, in collaboration with Taka Noda), here it is his ancestral connection with Michigan, his homeland and an inexhaustible source of inspiration, that takes shape. Here, muffled landscapes and nights lit by fire transform into autobiographic matter, leaving behind only a distant echo of an endless winter.

27/02/2025