PrioriCA/QC
Under the Priori moniker, Québecois musician Francis Latreille has established himself as a crucial voice in underground techno. His 2019 full-length debut On A Nimbus, released on his own NAFF imprint, was a haunting foray into the possibility/impossibility of technological utopia, where elements of dub techno, drum & bass. IDM and tech house curiously converged, resulting in an album at once familiar, modern and undeniably singular.
Francis followed that with a string of essential releases – from the slow-burning techy meditations of SCN and Little Flower to the anthemic, trance-inflected Infinity – ending with 2021’s Your Own Power. Where On A Nimbus is overtly pensive and opaque, Your Own Power rises to a lighter and more joyful atmosphere, full of fractalizing patterns, ear-prickling textures, and crystalline melodies that emerge and flicker in stunning detail. Here, as in all of Priori’s music, there remains an unresolved tension of opposites; between the biological and the synthetic, the actual and the possible, the positive and the negatively charged. In this way, this body work stands as a study of nature of a kind, a science of life in its myriad forms. In 2022, Nigh LP was released under the moniker Priori presents RED, showcasing a darker, more chaotic and rugged sound.
Priori is also an accomplished mixing engineer. Between the label he runs with Adam Feingold (ex terrestrial) and the studio he runs with Patrick Holland, Francis is quietly shaping the course of underground electronic dance music in Canada and abroad.
Who
Montréal-based DJ and producer Francis Latreille (formerly Francis Oak), half of Ntel alongside Ex-Terrestrial, part of ANF with Dust-e-1, and sharing Jump Source credits with Patrick Holland
Labels
NAFF, Echovolt Records, DustWORLD, Garmo
Latest
Infinity (Not on Label, 2020), SNA EP (DustWORLD, 2020), Priori Presents RED (143) (Garmo, 2020), We Have The Nimbus - (NAFF, 2019), On A Nimbus Remixes (NAFF, 2019)
More
Latreille masterminded an album of synthesizer experiments backed by saxophone musings under the New World Science moniker, collaborating with Ex-Terrestrial, Ramzi, and R Weng.
Links
Naff Recordings Bandcamp
