John Tejada’s Therapy

There shouldn’t be a law against screaming at the top of your lungs at 4am because that’s what I wanted to do when I first heard “Therapy 1,” the (first) title track from John Tejada’s Therapy EP on Palette Recordings. Give me a fat bottomed bass and a steady beat and I don’t need a whole lot more to be happy. John Tejada gives you a whole lot more, but it’s a clinic in sobriety and restraint. How many people do you know could make a catchy hook using one note? About halfway through, there are actually two. And it never feels hollow, it never feels like it’s missing something, because that bassline has seized control of your central nervous system and it’s no longer your own.

The interrelated nature of the tracks on Therapy is still a bit hazy to me: they sound like they might have been made together, from the same kit, but there’s enough distinction and flavor that the numbered system is more a convention of convenience than a suggestion of the same riffs being remixed four times over (or five on the Bandcamp and Beatport releases). “Therapy 3” is another sweet, sweet track, bringing to mind a fuzzy memory of Juan Atkins or 3MB.