Mor Elian // Diva Test
(Fever AM)
Offering sparkling production with plenty of feeling, the Berlin-based artist returns to her own label to shape out a distinctive sound in the shape-shifting techno-not-techno sphere.
Anyone who has witnessed Mor Elian working a dancefloor with her finely honed DJ instincts will have plenty of expectations hitting play on one of her EPs. The Berlin-based artist is cultivating a formidable presence in that flexible corner of modern techno-electro-bass-ish club music where delicacy and inventiveness take precedence over lumpen brawn.
Having graced wide-reaching labels like Prime Numbers, Hypercolour and Radio Matrix, it’s felt like building out her Fever AM platform has been the right vehicle for her sound to develop as a formidable, independent voice. At this point, we assume we’re getting high-grade, advanced club music for those who like a surprise or two, but even so Diva Test is a knockout work to make you sit up and take notice.
It’s ‘Diva Test (Cicada Mix)’ which especially drives this sensation home through its melodic incantations – oddly organic phrases with a quality which takes you into wide open spaces filled with natural light. In a climate of oppressive, nihilistic techno de rigeur, these kinds of qualities feel so precious and welcome. Elian’s instinct for invigorating club music extend elsewhere on the EP, in the playful but never kitsch melodic hooks of house swinger ‘Beta Zest’ or in the shimmering figures inhabiting the collaboration with Fever AM partner Rhyw, ‘Liquid Silver’. The clue is in the name, and the synthesis is indeed marked out by these vivid elements which give the music so much personality.
It is easy for such an approach to fall into the trap of novelty, but there’s also an emotional depth to Elian’s tracks which keeps them up top, moving with a kinesis which will absolutely set a club alight but offering something more meaningful than run-of-the-mill thudders and chuggers.
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