Link to Sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_blSxN-PCs
The Aztec Mystic
–
Knights of the Jaguar
Underground Resistance UR 049
Written by Rolando Ray Rocha (Gerald Mitchell/
Michael Anthony Banks)
© 1999
Lacquer cut by Ron Murphy at
National Sound Corporation
17610
West Warren Street in Detroit, Michigan
The heart of a resting Jaguar
beats at 72 bpm. This cat is ready from the get-go, ready to jump off, the main
theme laying down the initial harmonics, the 138 bpm setting the pace.
The mist is
still out over the Mexican jungle. The knights chaperoning the Aztec Mystic to
his throne hail from Detroit, Michigan: DJ Rolando, known to his mother as Rolando
Ray Rocha, Gerald Mitchell and “Mad Mike” Banks. Their order, dubbed
Underground Resistance, had been resisting the Empire since its foundation in
1990, churning out the finest in electronic music known to man. The track in
question was released without any information other than the above.
This Jaguar
charges along to a steady four to the floor TR-808 beat. The same classic
Japanese drum machine, once invented to put the drunken drummers out of jobs
who never showed up for band practice, which accidently spawned more new genres
than the electric guitar, go and ask the Ye’s, the Erykahs, the Drakes, the
Young Thugs. Instead of its signature and these days overtly prominent heavily
filtered kick drum variations, this feline uses “the foot” (as they call it in
Detroit Rock City) as a mere pulse, maybe a sampled Roland TR 909 underneath,
with the thrive rather relying on the clap/snare-combination on the offbeat,
shepherded by a cajon and an open Tambourine. A Yamaha RX might be the culprit
here. Differently tuned congas tied together by a little ball of shaker
percussion, the loop subtly filtered so it graces the mammal’s every step.
The Jaguar’s
launching. No one can really measure his tempo, everyone can feel his thriving
energy, each individual step might be out of sync, and yet, every eight bars it
all comes together nicely. Forward ever, backwards never.
The frequency
modulated bass chugging along, grounding the themes along the d-minor7 into
g-minor7, down to F-major6, d-minor, up to a-minor, back to d, a-minor, G-min7,
Fmaj6, Fmaj7. Somewhere later, a cheeky flat-B-Major7 into another a-minor, a
diminished Emin7 and round and round we go.
The most prominent
FM synthesizer, the Yamaha DX7, popularized the technology developed at
Stanford. First unobtainable to anyone not playing to sold-out-stadiums, it found
its way in more homes than any digital synthesizer before. “Mad Mike” Banks
secretly likes to tell the tale, of how they obtained their piece of kit: Host
to universes of sound, the machine was a nightmare to program, and so the local
church, who had bought one unit - dazzled by possibilities, distraught by its
realities - was desperate for help. A deal was made, and the congregation
swayed along, at the forefront of technology, brought to you by the friendly
neighborhood watch squad.
The Jaguar’s
movements, harmony in motion, precision through a prism. His legs in unison as
he chases, darts, jumps, ducks. Obstacles are avoided, new heights reached. Every
16 bars, the swirl introduces new iterations of the by now familiar theme,
drawing you in further, higher frequencies luring you to realms aloof. Fear
not. It’s a bass, too. A simple sinewave, pitched up by a few octaves, maybe
re-sampled and filtered. Like the individual legs of the cat of prey, these
sequences touch the ground at different points in time, the ping-pong delay
bouncing steps across the rooms. It’s the well-adjusted lagging which propels
the motion forward.
The Jaguar’s set
of teeth are the fiercest amongst all the cats. A bite that pierces any other
animals’s armor and shell. There he is, preying along the riverbanks, slinking
in slow-motion. Grounded on heavy feet, paying attention to the slightest
changes, muy subtil, which grant an opening. Lurking.
Watch him
charge for a caiman amidst the waters of the Pantanal, you’ll immediately understand
why the people of the Tupi-Guarani baptized him Yaguara, the “wild beast that
overcomes its prey at a bound”. Jumps paling Acapulco crowds, pulling the
corpse of a devastated reptile with his fangs alone. Aiming straight for the
kill, the neck, pulling the prey towards a quiet place across ridges and
shores. To feast off what was just alive and swimming.
Like the meat
inside the shells of its prey, the EQ (equalizer) exculpates the exceptional
abundance, granted by brutal torrential rain, and the evaporated leftovers, as
the temperature hits a hundred degrees.
The Jaguar
knows how to swim, how to dive. Nose, eyes, and ears hovering above the waterline,
the multi-sensorics periscope of a submarine. This apex predator launches
across the labyrinth of waterways, see UR – The Seawolf (World Power Alliance
002). Key competencies: stalking and ambush, by land, by the sea, and in the
air. Thus, the main theme never surrenders, sneaks in, every other 16 bars,
never tired, glued together by the saliva, dripping in anticipation, too quick
for the victim to build any apprehension.
This
main theme melts many timbres, percussively filtered woodwinds and brass,
electronic cousins of marimbas and xylophones, announcing the knights, their
order closely guarding the Aztec king, entering their capital under a frieze of
jaguar skin. They are warriors, an elite caste, born for the battlefront,
leaders on and off the field. Their roar the sound of thunder, knowledgeable
about a person’s inner workings and the things to come. Their mythological
cousins the missing link between the underworld and the alive, crossing realms,
claiming opponents to be ritually sacrificed to the gods.
The Jaguar’s main
key is d, of course, what else could it be in an anthem hailing from, well, “the
D”. Detroit Motor City. A sparse urban jungle, that keeps it and its’s wonder,
how they keep from going under. Home of the American automobile, where
descendants of the underground railroad manning conveyor belts and steel
hammers have forged rhythms so solid, the world couldn’t stop listening.
The patterns
of his fur camouflage the cat against other predators and lull any other animal
in false senses of security. Tribe, Motown, Parliament, Cybotron, Mojo, Dilla –
it’s no coincidence that a melanistic black jaguar is commonly called a Black
Panther.
Bar 81, the
signature Detroit legato strings seep in, quickly escalating into cascades of
stabs, rummaging, rumbling, reacting, redeeming. The violins, no, five
different types of strings, panned to various channels, in oscillating weight
proportions, announcing the coming of a king.
Welcome the
Korg M3, if you want to witness this in the flesh (in the studio, it might have
been its predecessor, the Trinity). “The board” as his main conductor likes to
dub it, a fine piece of machinery, relatively affordable, more might than its
mundane armor might hint at. One of its key features are eight velocity sensitive
pads, which ex-factory are assigned to a set of chords some engineer in Japan
deemed logical to go with a certain preset. Touch these pads with different
attack, and the board will grant you with symphonic chords of a complexity,
Monk’s monks and Sir Simon’s rats will be rattled.
Slavish
adherents of Western Classical theory would never be caught alive utilizing
them, but the D don’t front. If u ever witnessed someone like one of the city’s
finest, Theo Parrish, utilize it like an MPC, you know, whatup,doe.
About time for
Gerald Mitchell taking you to church. His aquatic gospel chops thrusting the
panthera onca towards attack mode, introducing a bunch of major7s, the olde
maj6 into maj7 trick, a glorious C7. The good lorde knoweth, life essentially
is about surviving.
The string
pads subtly lingering in the background, setting the stage for the climax, wind
and seagulls mixed with pink noise, the classic Detroit pitch bend evoking the
“high tech dreams for low tech people” Mike likes to lecture about. A mystic
eeriness, seeping in as well camouflaged as the cat behind the acacias.
The Jaguar
keeps on watching from between the ferns, one caiman down, some deer might be
nice, for once. Unlike his leo-cousin, he’s a loner, he knows, any competition
comes down to being a fight. The finicky staccato in bar 120 ushers in a new
round.
Two thirds in.
The drop.
None of that
fancy EDM-schmock-drop-talk, old school low cut, kick drop, the tiny reeds of a
church organ piping in unison to the theme. A little nod to European
interpretations of Detroit classics, Pacific State, we hear you.
The Jaguar was
played by anyone, their mother, their brother. And now their grandkids, too.
First released in 1999, the so-called social media is full of the world’s
finest DJs closing their sets with it, and numerous not so fine ones trying to
add some class to their sad efforts.
The copycat
affair, it would love to forget. An employee of the SONY offices Germany, then
situated in Frankfurt, had heard his flatmate raving about people well, raving
to this track. Knowing Underground Resistance’s well and often worn
anti-corporate stance, they didn’t waste too much time in negotiating and
rather commissioned a cover version, distributed faster than any of the Aztlan
compadres in the D could have ever managed. Alas, the knights of the Jaguar
stayed on guard. Word got out, the major shamed, chords triumphed over courts.
While rightfully mad, Mike Banks could tend to more productive moments again in
time. He’d rather stay with the nighttime quarter-mile races anyway, making an
extra buck, supporting a minor league baseball theme in the hood. Vengeance had
all bases loaded. People kept on dancing. The original Jaguar had prevailed.
A few miles
down, at Grosse Point Blank, there’s a Jag for sale, the classic XJ12, British
racing green. As dwindling as its roar sends the senses, maintenance sets the
classic car afficionado back every time the 12 pots need to be recalibrated.
Since the 2012 Jaguar XF, the engineers deliver their automobiles with a
starting light, which pulsates at 72 bpm, their all-electric vehicles ready
with an acceleration rivalling a F1 race car.
Forget about
the sad gaming console of the same name, this one Jaguar moves toward a better
future. As the strings elevate higher, the Jaguar wields the quarry in triumph.
The closing chord, lingering, the only exemption from the cascades of 8 bar
loops.
Hush my
darling, don’t fear my darling: The Jaguar sleeps tonight, resting calmly, well-guarded
by the Aztec Mystic’s might.
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