Track By Track: Rodion – Generator

The 1st of April marked the release of Rodion's latest endeavour, titled 'Generator' and released on Nein Records and plays out boldly across ten tracks. It is almost ten years since the Italian producer released his debut LP for Gomma back in 2007: since then his production and influences have led him across an exploratory path which has seen him dabble in the realms of Italo, Disco, Acid, Electro and beyond. This album is simply the latest piece in the Rodion puzzle which has busily been becoming more self explanatory over time. We caught up with him to talk us through the album, track by track..

PHOBOS

Phobos is one of the two Martian moons. When the humans go to bed they see the moon. Martians they see Phobos and Deimos. Phobos looks ugly, like a giant floating broadbean. And Phobos is also the Greek god of fear. so welcome in space, but beware that traveling in depth might also sometimes be an unpleasant journey. 

BOSPHORUS HIPPIES

I played this tune with Istanbul in my mind. The name Bosphorus makes scent of spices and rotten fish come to my mind, buzzing crowds and magic starry nights on the asian shore. I featured some sort of auto-tuned muezzin chant, on top of a cosmic and vaguely hippie triplet ride and some morricone inspired melodies, for which I consider my favorite album number.

ASPETTA!

Aspetta! means "wait!" in Italian. the first of the three album interludes is made, like the other ones, with droning analog synthesizers plus some whispers and mexican flutes. it s meant to invite the listener to wait and take a breath after the first combo before the journey goes on, through the abuse of scary synth patches.

BOCOCA HILLS

This one deliberately sounds like a tune out of a blaxploitation movie, or at least like our vision of it. we had NY, the ESG and Tom Tom club in our mind when playing. it turned out to be the Dj's favorite album number, also thanks to the amazing reinterpretations that Fabrizio Mammarella and the Emperor Machine did of it.

ALLEE DER KOSMONAUTEN

I have always been a soviet imagery fan. More a Sputnik than an Apollo guy. When I visited my first studio place in Berlin I was a bit undecided. Then I found it was right on this big east-berlin  "Alle der Kosmonauten road. I felt a good vibe, walked back and signed the deal.I think this psychedelic pop tune is the ideal soundtrack for a night ride along the empty allee, following the milky way until Poland.

COLAZIONE!

One of my favorite album moments.  An interlude inspired by the mellow melodies of Boards of Canada and Bernard Febvre, a surreal synthetic countryside landscape where now gone children memories still play under the summer sun. 

GAMMA

Gamma is inspired by the acid disco sounds of Luke Vibert and it also features quite a carpenterish flavor. Gamma rays are among the most powerful things in the universe, an all time sci-fi favorite of many, including me since my childhood. The central melody hook comes often unexpected to the listener and brings the tune to an upper level of cosmic mellowness before diving back into some bizarre oriental flavored gipsy house beat to close with.

ALTA MAREA

In Italian "alta marea" means "high tide". the song is led by an insisting acid sequence made with the Elka Synthex, and its up and down morphing waves always made me feel like riding a boat when the sea is enraged: hard times, but great wild  feelings. I ran the afro percussions through a moog ring modulator, here and in many other tracks, to make them sound like a rare grooves record from zaire.

RIPOSA!

"Riposa" is "sleep!" in Italian. our drummer Gilberto whispered some german word out of his Berlin nightmares and we layered it on top of some creepy sample-and-hold droning synths. Riposa, if you can.

RUN-OUT

We choose the wildest of the album tracks to close the album journey with. a run-out is a slight misalignment of something, a minuscule shift in the axis of a planet which can lead to unexpected disasters across the universe. Vocoder work, here like in other tracks, is courtesy of the amazing Dynacord SRV66 vocoder, one of the warmest and sexiest vocoders ever to my ears. 

Buy the release HERE.