It’s tough moving away from home for the first time, but when your style changes to an extent where it would be incongruous with your family’s rigid apparel standards to stick around, the necessary decision has to be made: “bell-bottoms have no place in the second decade of the 2000s, mom and dad, so I’m out!”
And in a similar vein, Kangding Ray a.k.a. David Letellier is temporarily out at the Chemnitz-based label Raster-Noton after releasing his first five studio albums courtesy of their sponsorship. Doubtless the two remain on good terms, and Letellier’s switch to the Berlin-based Stroboscopic Artefacts for his new record is likewise not entirely surprising. Kangding’s previously released several singles via the label, and a press release details how Hyper Opal Mantis is the producer’s first genuinely techno album, which might’ve offered a contrast with the glitchy and minimalistic sound that R-N has superlatively trafficked in since its inception. Anyone who’s seen Kangding in concert knows his verging proclivity for danceable 4/4s.
The new one’s out February 24, and it follows 2015’s Cory Arcane. The tracks are segmented by the three “states of desire” referenced in the album title: HYPER: “the primal, sensual lust,”; OPAL: “the emotional catharsis”; and MANTIS: “the destructive, fatal attraction.” Check out a track from the pre-head-biting stage below.
Hyper Opal Mantis tracklisting:
01. Rubi
02. Lone Pyramids
03. Epsilon
04. Purple Phase
05. Dune
06. Soul Surfing
07. Outremer
08. Onde Mantis
09. Saudade
10. Laniakea
More about: Kangding Ray
