Album Review: It's the Arps [EP] by Todd Terje

When Todd Terje's Ragysh came out last year, Jack Haighton mused on the implausibility of the record being as good as it was. Terje had released the widely loved Eurodans in 2005, then pretty much gone silent—who'd have expected him to bounce back five years later with an even more explosive EP? But Ragysh was precisely that: a galvanizing club hit that thrust Terje back into the spotlight. And while dance floors around the world were still soaking up "Ragysh" and "Snooze 4 Love" (neither has lost its luster today), Terje had another ace up his sleeve: It's the Arps, a glistening modern disco EP that, at the risk of splitting hairs, is probably his finest yet.

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Todd TerjeIt's The Arps EP[Smalltown Supersound; 2012]By Will Ryan; February 7, 2012Purchase at: Insound (Vinyl) | Amazon (MP3 & CD) | iTunes | MOGTweet'Space disco' is a weird tag because the atmosphere its music is meant to invoke is right there in its name: Space. Space is an unknown where we're able to comfortably and unknowingly project our expectations of the future ideal (a trivial past time in 2012, to be sure). But as some bygone cosmic rockers once lamented, "space does not care.

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In the parlance of the increasingly vocal menswear blogging community, Todd Terje is "having a moment." A combination of serendipity and opportunism, a moment is a flash of triumph, unplanned and difficult to reproduce. To offer some perspective, cargo pants are also having a moment. Like Terje productions (as opposed to remixes), cargo pants disappeared for a few years mid-decade; now they're back, and they look (sound) better than anyone remembers.

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It’s the reliance on a sole instrument, namely the ARP2600 analog synthesizer, that allows producer/DJ Todd Terje to navigate his way through a very impressive EP that, while a bit glib at times, morphs distinct chills and genuine atmosphere out of basic dance song structures. The puzzlingly titled “Inspector Norse” opens the four-song set with an infectious groove and a foot-tapping shuffle. The song sheds its faux-Deadmau5 skin early, though, as the lead synth riff takes center stage, evolving, transforming, and sliding around both the beat and powerful major chords that bellow beneath at the halfway mark.

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