In the Silk Road community, the name Friendly Chemist made headlines alongside the arrest of Dread Pirate Roberts as the user with a price on his head. The not-so friendly extortionist earned the hit by demanding $500,000 in exchange for keeping the personal information (names and addresses) private of its members. The album Touch Of Jupiter, out February 10 on 1080p Collection, was not made by the same guy.
Couldn’t be the same guy, truthfully. The Friendly Chemist born Jean Brazeau, based on his music alone, is no extortionist. Touch Of Jupiter is an exploratory collection of celestial techno, liquefied in the chic textures of acid house. With each breathy sample and fountain recording, Friendly Chemist establishes an aggression-free environment of ambient baths and cave meditation. It’s hardware with a naturalist ear. The midi sax on “Visions from Yesterday (Saxi Mix)” channels the same 90s toy bigbeat nostalgia that LOL Boys brought to their Changes EP, while “Trying To Find U” recalibrates the blip as less a morse transmission, but rather a playful conversation, phoning to the satellite heart. Brazeau’s astral work throughout Touch Of Jupiter defies static convention with a transformative warmth to techno’s presumably disengaged programming. We are in the fourth house of Jupiter with Brazeau and it’s a happy home.
Purchase Touch of Jupiter at 1080p Collection.
