- A DJ before she was a producer, Mor Elian's tracks have tended towards the utilitarian. Last year, on releases for Delft and Fever AM, the Israeli artist injected more personality and pungent mood into her minimalist productions. Like the Delft record, Elian's latest—and best—EP focusses on electro. But where Miracle Mind Program had a lighter sway, Fairplex Drive is linear and angst-filled. Its four tracks are "inspired by the adventures of two ancient souls travelling for four days on planet earth." Rainforests and cityscapes are implied, but mostly Elian seems to linger in the deserts of her sometime home, California, and their alien landscapes with hints of the extraterrestrial. One moment we're coasting down "Gamma Gulch," the walls closing steadily in while the starscape above—a Terrence Dixon-style canopy of flickering arps—is obscured by ever darker clouds. And then the landscape opens out onto "Starlight Mesa," a broad expanse marked by stark lead lines and roaming chords.
These two tracks form the EP's central drama, and the latter one hints at a stronger emotion—determination, maybe. The rest of the record remains creepily ambiguous. On "Fairplex Drive" and "Ruby," laser-sharp lead lines wriggle like glowworms over pristine drums and chord hush. These tracks haven't lost the DJ-malleability of Elian's past records, but they're as fresh as anything.
TracklistA1 Fairplex Drive
A2 Gamma Gulch
B1 Starlight Mesa
B2 Ruby