‘D-Tension’s Secret’ is out
Lowell artist picks another lane with ‘Rock & Roll Project’
D-Tension spent his early years in New York City during the dawn of hiphop. The producer-MCbeatmaker- singer- andbudding-guitarist spent his teen years hanging in the underground rock scene of Kenmore Square. Since then, he’s never stayed put artistically.
“I’ve always been a fan of all these sounds, and I’ve had musicians tell me, ‘ You can’t do this, you’re going to confuse the audience, pick a lane,’ and I say, ‘Why do I have to do that? There’s really no reason I have to pick a lane,’” DTension said with a laugh.
Long based in Lowell, the genre-jumping artist did at least pick a vibe for his new album. The title sums it up: “D-Tension’s Secret Rock & Roll Project.”
His hooks, loops and samples have given life to records by Slug of Atmosphere, Mr. Lif, Akrobatik, Gift of Gab, Esoteric, Slaine and more. In 2014, he expanded his reach with “D-Tension’s Secret Project” — an LP of ’80s-leaning synth pop and indie rock featuring guest vocals from 11 Boston heroes and up-and-comers. This time D-Tension did the singing (and filled out a few tracks with guest players) on an album of punk, hard rock, new wave and more.
“I didn’t say, ‘I want this one to sound like the Cure, this one to sound like Van Halen,’” he said. “I just wanted it to sound like an hour of flawless radio programming, like when ’FNX (where D-Tension DJed before the station shuttered) would play Pearl Jam into LCD Soundsystem then Beastie Boys.”
On the album’s first single, “Kenmore Square,” DTension laments the loss of the former hub of all things rad and radical in ’80s Boston.
“It was the most magical place,” he said of the Square’s heyday. “It was this free world. So I started hanging out there as often as I could.”
The raw-and-loose punk rock cut came out of the 2020 edition of One Night Band, a daylong event that teams musicians from different segments of the scene to write, record and perform new music in a single day. And so while it looks at a long-gone era, it evokes that era by pulling together indie and alt rockers from today’s scene. The original One Night Band version was a collaboration between D-Tension and musicians Diamonte Darbouze, Brooke Feinberg, Hannah Schzde and Tanya Venom (their One Night Band moniker was The Yellow Shots); D-Tension had many of those players contribute to this album’s version by recording remotely.
Because D-Tension refuses to stay in a lane, the next album will be a whole new sonic experiment.
“I’m nine songs into the next record and it has a vibe and that vibe is ‘fuzz pedals,’” he said with a laugh. “I have about eight (fuzz pedals) and so while the songs are in different styles they all also feature a different pedal. The other thing is this record I’m making with no help. That’s my next challenge.”