Kompakt Records welcomes its second L.A. artist, John Tejada

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For two decades, John Tejada quietly ascended the experimental fringes of techno, building tracks with a care for sonic detail that could either be picked apart conceptually or totally surrendered to on a packed floor. Deeply respected in the brainier corners of the genre and a consistent chart-topper at the online techno retailer Beatport, the Van Nuys-based Tejada has watched dance music explode across the L.A. club and festival scenes after years in a genre ghetto.

So it’s quite a salutation that the venerable German label Kompakt is putting out his new album, ‘Parabolas,’ on June 20, representing a departure from his own Palette Recordings and a big step forward in his career. Tejada has performed at Disney Hall and regularly cites avant-garde composers as reference points. Album tracks such as ‘Unstable Condition’ bristle with noise and hand-gnarled synths, while his sleeker side gets showcased on the lush and ruminative ‘The Living Night’ and ‘Farther and Fainter.’

This comes on the heals of Kompakt’s release of Rainbow Arabia’s ‘Boys and Diamonds,’ which means that the label’s recent attention to L.A. can only bode well for the city’s artier dance music circles.

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-- August Brown

Photo via Kompakt Records