E.B.E. - “Serenity” Soma Compilation Seven 2000 Tech-House / Deep Techno
California’s not a place that’s really known much for its techno, but in a state that’s home to literally tens of millions of people, you’re bound to find at least a few great producers, and one of them is San Jose’s Lucas Rodenbush. Although Rodenbush may have looked like the bassist in a local skate-punk band during some of his most prolific years, don’t let his exterior fool you; under just a few monikers, he was actually able to proliferate his well-crafted blends of techno, house, and tech-house through a number of popular dance labels the world over between the late 90s and early aughts. Since then, he’s transitioned himself into an academic and is now immersed in the avant garde world of electro-acoustic music, but in his earliest days, Rodenbush channeled his always innovative music sense onto a globalized dancefloor instead.
One of the many labels on which Rodenbush’s music has landed is the highly respected Glasgow-based Soma Quality Recordings, through which he released two 12-inches under his primary stage name, E.B.E., between 1999 and 2000. The second 12-inch, the Neural Response EP, is a four-song release that has a fantastic keys-and-strings combo kind of track on it called “Serenity,” which also appeared on Soma’s Compilation Seven label sampler in 2000 as well.
“Serenity” is a tune that’s on a real deep-space tech-house kind of vibe, thanks in large part to its echoingly sharp, twinkling keys and its floaty bed of slowly swaying, French-inspired, melancholic synth work. And while these two integral elements, when combined with a 4/4 kick drum, closed and open hats, hand claps (is it just me, or does every fourth hand clap sound a little more thunderous than the others?), shakers, and some other hissing bits of percussion are enough to make “Serenity” a solid piece of inward-looking deep techno on its own in the early going, it’s the extra stuff that Rodenbush adds to the mix and the little changes he makes along the way that put this song over the top; more percussion, some lightly rumbling bass, spots of more keys with a little added heft, and the crowning pieces: a growing chorus of prickling, glassy string shards of varied lengths, plus an extra, brief mini-bed of strings that lie beneath the just-introduced strings, which sway in much the same way as the main bed of dreary synths at the track’s bottom.
Just a wonderful early aughts offering from Rodenbush here; one where you can’t help but imagine an astronaut who’s fully equipped with feelings that’s floating above Earth and getting their little groove on.