Name: Shadows of Death and Desire
Brand: Silent Servant

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

HOS 613CD

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2018-12-05

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Forced Exposure

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

843563108659

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Total Cap

1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Silent Servant

Genre US

Electronic

Label US

Hospital Productions

An American techno DJ and producer, Silent Servant was born in Central America and raised in Los Angeles. Growing up, he was heavily influenced by bands such as The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, My Bloody Valentine, and Sonic Youth. At the age of 16, he began his journey as a DJ.
In 1999, Silent Servant connected with Regis, the founder of the Birmingham-based Downwards label. This led to him becoming a member of Regis's Sandwell District collective. Throughout the 2000s, Silent Servant released a series of singles alongside Sandwell District.
Aside from his music career, Silent Servant has also worked as a graphic designer and art director at a high-end eyewear company. His diverse background adds depth to his artistic vision.

Silent Servant Shadows of Death and Desire Available here on Standard LP with Poster and Standard CD

Silent Servant returns with Shadows of Death and Desire. Now-legendary producer, DJ, and art director Juan Mendez arguably reset techno at least twice. Once with his surreal and Europe-by-way-of-LA '80s apocalypse culture aesthetics for Sandwell District, and again as Silent Servant capturing the youth-driven mutation of crossover electronics and dark parties churning in the American underground, which followed directly in the wake of his game-changing modern classic, Negative Fascination (2012). Mendez has evolved to more aggressive and stripped-down acid punk electro dance attacks Shadows of Death and Desire. Mendez took his time to deliver a more raw --yet refined-- brutalism on this, his second album. The otherworldly guitar feedback of opener "Illusion" is cut short with a relentless bass sequence erasing any preconceptions of softening with time. Stereo-panned dusty snares drag along concrete and break apart with without a past or future. The introductory hypnotic sprawl is hastily dissected and left behind for the systematic tension of single "Harm In Hand." Cold drum machine rolls that could have been removed with a laser from early Ministry are offset with a vocal delivery not felt in techno since Suicide. The narrative is constantly disrupted by caustic guitar stabs, its naked urgency like slamming on the brakes while inertia thrusts you forward in space but decidedly not in time. In his own words, "The record is a product of a significant life change that wasn't a benefit," which is eerily felt from the start but is surprisingly washed away with album closer, "Optimistic Decay" (which has become a mission statement from Mendez's visual ideology). "Optimistic Decay" sees Mendez reuniting with vocalist Camella Lobo (Tropic Of Cancer). Lobo's voice rises from spectral vocal delays beyond dub. A subtle nod to Silent Servant's initial Maurizio-leaning EPs but with the grandiosity and opioid slow-motion haze of My Bloody Valentine. Also a student of cinematic deconstruction, the album looks inward from the exterior of LA's untold stories in the netherworlds on the edge of the city, a rapid crash course in confidence games and subsequent letdowns. Shadows of Death and Desire sets the standard in electronic post-punk. Mixed and mastered by Josh Eustis. Designed by Silent Editions

Shadows of Death and Desire

Music US