Photo by Daniel Stenzel.
Brooklyn beatmaker Chester Raj Anand, a.k.a. Lord RAJA, today shares a full stream of his simmering new Amadeus EP. The record is forthcoming on Ghostly International, and it has a distinctly troubled air to it, equally evocative of agitation and melancholy. Amadeus is produced entirely in minor keys, and with minimal dilution by sweeping effects, allowing emotion to arrive with candid plainness. A few highlights include the bracing single featuring AceMo, "Streets of Rage," the exquisitely mournful "Picasso," and the industrial techno of "Colors."Anand told THUMP about the concepts and musical ideas that went into making the EP. "I was really more influenced by films than music at the time," he said. "I had an image of pure electrostatic in my head, like lightning. I wanted to capture that sort of intensity in abstract ways. This project has a completely separate approach or life from my prior works and I think that will translate quite clearly. I felt possessed by the possibilities of repetition. Sometimes repetition can hypnotize you, take your mind off things, or generate a dormant energy out from your body and make you dance.""I wasn't thinking about genres, and I didn't sit down and think to myself, 'What am I about to make?' You have to let yourself be possessed in the process, and relinquish everything you think you already know. Creating should feel stronger than dreaming. Rarely do you have such control."Amadeus will be released this Friday, May 19, and is available for pre-order digitally and on cassette. The producer will go on tour in July.
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