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Antonionian

Available now from Anticon

Antonionian is Oakland’s Jordan Dalrymple -- drumcrusher, beatslayer, multi-instrumentalist and erstwhile keeper of the Subtle sound. As one of that cult-hallowed sextet’s chief producers (along with Adam “Doseone” Drucker and Jeffrey “Jel” Logan), Jordan had a heavy hand in crafting those inimitable electro rap-gone-Kraut scores. But with Antonionian the longtime sideman, who also plays with French pop act General Elektriks and experimental supergroup 13 & God, steps out from behind the curtain to carve out his very own post-everything avant-funk.


Jordan’s is a propulsive and dreamlike sound that finds him bending voice, electronics and various acoustics to his unique ends -- something that nods to the dark art- rock of London archetypes This Heat, “Paisley Park”- era Prince and contemporaries TV On the Radio, albeit channeled through one man. Antonionian is a result of a compact musical lineage. Jordan’s mother was a singer, his father a classical percussionist, and their son was sitting behind a kit by the age of 3. By high school, he was versed in piano and theory. He’d begun teaching himself guitar and practicing drums five hours a day. His dad had to soundproof the garage.


In 1996, Jordan followed his band Conglomerate from San Diego to Berkeley. Dax Pierson was a member too, and a record store job or two later, they formed Subtle in Jordan’s Oakland flat. There, above a Chinese restaurant, the group recorded its first four EPs with Jordan in the role of Can’s Holger Czukay, engineering and editing the experiment. He played with cLOUDDEAD too, and Reaching Quiet (a proto-WHY?). In 2004, Subtle released its debut LP, A New White, and on the band’s first tour, their van rolled over. Dax was paralyzed from the neck down.


That moment proved both devastating and edifying. Like his colleagues, Jordan doubled down on music, and the results were two more increasingly imaginative Subtle albums -- 2006’s For Hero: For Fool and 2008’s ExitingARM -- as well as countless hours on the road before they disbanded in ’09. Since, Jordan’s been hitting skins and buttons for General Elektriks (Honeycut and Blackalicious collaborator HerveĢ Salters), fine-tuning the long-awaited second album from 13 & God (the Notwist + Themselves), and, of course, crafting his solo debut as Antonionian, a name aptly inspired by the hypnagogic works of filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni.

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