Little Green Lights & Four Inch Faders

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Los Angeles producer Tejada has been releasing armloads of consistently sharp tech-house 12"s and, with precious little hype or ego, slowly but steadily attracting a following befitting his reputation as one of our eminent techno stylists. For the second time, the honor of sharing Tejada's talent with devotees whose digital inclinations preclude them from keeping pace with his impressive volume of vinyl offerings falls to Essex's A13 Records. The same label had earlier released Tejada's electrifying Lucid Dream material, and whereas Little Green Lights... puts the "house" in bold print and italicizes the "techno" - perhaps house-tech would be more appropriate - the album doesn't otherwise deviate recklessly from Tejada's well-established template. His music is about solidity and consistency. Tejada experiments freely with effects and filters but does so without calling undue attention to procedure. The rolling momentum of the album doesn't halt just so that a "Green Fingers" or an "In Control" can pass through particular gates. These things just happen, part of the flow of the record, and they feel completely natural when they do. The album doesn't spread itself all over the map - the terrain encompassed here is actually quite limited - but each track bristles with attractive hooks and attentively crafted, mutable rhythms. If your preferred mode of electronica requires a calamitous breakdown of song and structure, Little Green Lights... probably will not be the record to turn you into a raving house-phile. If what you're looking for, however, is an actual album - not a collection of old tracks pasted together with filler, but an hour where equal time and care has obviously been lavished on each beat and every turn of melody - you'd be hard pressed to find a better full-length portion of contemporary dance music.