John Tejada Releases Lead Single 'Shattered' from Upcoming Album

John Tejada's forthcoming release, Sleepwalker, a hypnotic full length album due out on March 18, 2022, continues where 2021's Year Of The Living Dead left off. Last year's LP was created during the most troublesome part of our pandemic lockdown, illustrating the anxieties, uncertainties, and isolation felt by so many. Sleepwalker was created in what felt like a collective holding pattern, where it seemed that for every step taken by the world to get out of the pandemic, we took two steps back. Set to be released on Tejada's own label, Palette Recordings-now in its 26th year-the lead single, "Shattered," comes out on March 4, followed by the album two weeks later. For more information, please visit https://linktr.ee/johntejada.

Started at the end of 2021 and finished at the onset of 2022, the production process on this album became more of a digital collage, using analog and digital synthesis with a lot of audio processing. A brew of many rhythms and sonic elements were woven into harmony with each other. The styles and BPM vary, and there is a variety of energies and rhythms, not unlike any of Tejada's most recent albums. But the mood of this album delves into deeper landscapes. Low frequency sounds hold many of the tracks together primarily a sub-frequency drone that carries a sense of tension throughout many of the tracks.

The opening track, "Shattered" starts things off with the most driving moment on the album creating an immediate sense of tension. "Excursion" dives into some of Tejada's '90s melodic chord stabs with a new twist. "Over the Wires," "Skull Music," and "Isolate" all explore some deep half-time low end and dub influenced feels, while "Unafraid" gives a nod to some of Tejada's past emotive melodic work. "When We Dead Awaken" is a direct nod to last year's album and gives an uneasy feel as though its bass thumps are falling down a hill.

A big part of the album is the video for the first song "Shattered," created by Julia Vivien Volz. This became a key part to creating that song in particular and influenced the work to come on the rest of the album. Volz and Tejada's idea was to collaborate fully by advancing the work from only a few seconds up to 60 seconds at a time, passing it back and forth to guide their joint creative workflow. Instead of Volz just creating images that would be paired to a finished piece of music or vice versa, it was a process where both she and Tejada influenced the direction to create an audio visual collaboration.

"Without really discussing direction in the beginning, apart from getting the words 'frozen' and 'ice' from Volz to work with, we were already very much thinking about the same themes," says Tejada. In Volz's own words from her Munich home, "This video project was created during the dark winter months with the pandemic still being very present in everyone's life. It displays the mood of the exploration of the unknown: desire and shattered hopes."

For the creation of the video, a digital synthesizer was used that not only creates a sense of distortion but also acts as a representation for the nostalgia of past decades. The video is intended to evoke a kind of dream state. We see a man and a woman who never seem to meet, but one gets the feeling that they can sense each other's presence.

The constantly moving road symbolizes the continuous pursuit to get to a destination but neither of them have any idea where it will lead. We see a thistle flower throughout. While the Thistle is beautiful to look at, it also acts as a symbol of desolation, pain and annoyance. The repeated appearance of these flowers foreshadows that things might become uncomfortable. Underlining the discomfort of the dreamer, the shattering glass indicates the force of a final collapse that doesn't promise a happy ending.

The purple thistle also sets the color tone that is used throughout the video.from getting the words 'frozen' and 'ice' from Volz to work with, we were already very much thinking about the same themes," says Tejada. In Volz's own words from her Munich home, "This video project was created during the dark winter months with the pandemic still being very present in everyone's life. It displays the mood of the exploration of the unknown: desire and shattered hopes."

Tejada is currently a professor at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Music Technology. He is also half of the duo Wajatta with actor and musician Reggie Watts on Brainfeeder.

Check out the music video!