Maya

Album review

John Frusciante has long acknowledged techno and rave culture as a major interest and a significant influence on his singular, sometimes confounding solo career, but it wasn't until the 2010s that the off-again, on-again Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist began releasing purely instrumental electronic music. Following a one-off 2010 collaboration with Venetian Snares as part of the trio Speed Dealer Moms, Frusciante began releasing acid techno as Trickfinger in 2015, while 2016's Foregrow EP, issued under his own name, incorporated sparing amounts of guitars and vocals into his adventurous arrangements of skittering beats and kinetic synth melodies. Maya is Frusciante's second album released in 2020, following a Trickfinger set titled She Smiles Because She Presses the Button. Titled after his feline companion of 15 years who had passed away, Maya is credited to Frusciante's given name, which is fitting as it has more personality than much of his Trickfinger work, even if the album lacks his knotty guitar playing or falsetto vocals. The tracks all center around heavily chopped-up breakbeats, equally inspired by early '90s U.K. hardcore as well as the trailblazing drill'n'bass experiments of producers like Squarepusher and Luke Vibert. Emotionally, the tracks contain a powerful mixture of club ecstasy and wistful longing, coming close to the moods of mid-'90s darkside jungle, but pushing the beats a bit further. Midtempo opener "Brand E" has a steady, club-friendly rhythm along with simmering acid squiggles, but most of the album is harder, more complex, and more frenetic. Tracks like "Usbrup Pensul" are filled with clattering, stuttering drums and rave stabs, while "Blind Aim" is a tough, thrilling piece of mutant ragga-jungle, shifting from levitating synths to explosive Amen breaks. "Amethblowl" is even deadlier and rougher, with extremely bit-crushed breakbeats detonating all over sinister sci-fi melodies. Each of the tracks took a while to prepare, as Frusciante would fine-tune synth patches and arrange breakbeats, but the actual recordings were bashed out pretty quickly, and they all maintain that sense of elaborately designed spontaneity, making it easily the artist's most successful electronic work.

© Paul Simpson /TiVo