Priori^CA/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.