Los Angeles producer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist John Rojas will release his debut solo LP, SKIN, on October 9 via NOETIC, the techno label run by David Castellani. The record is a collage of electronic sound that swings between relentless patterns and moments of open vulnerability. Each track is built to shift the mood, sharpen the senses, and get bodies moving.
Taken as a whole, SKIN is a reflective work. It channels tension, anxiety, and ambivalence through electronics, reaching for the things language can't quite say.
The concept
The album was an idea before it was ever a sound: electronics as the human body. Rojas used the title as the guiding theme and named each track after a part of the body. That gave him a clear focal point for every piece and a way to tie them together with intent.
The result is an audio canvas shaped like a body, with every song acting as one of its limbs. Working inside those boundaries let Rojas find a voice within the machines. Sounds are animated, twisted, and set in motion with attitude, and overtones are bent until they carry real emotional weight.
LISTEN TO A PREVIEW OF SKIN
The process
Rojas approached SKIN as an inward-looking story, aimed at drawing out his own electronic language. His only goal was honesty: raw choices, spontaneity, and room for mistakes.
Just as the body is flawed in all the right ways, the record embraces the uncertainty of making something. It trusts that an unplanned moment often lands better than a decision overthought in advance.
The tracklist moves from hypnotic, four-on-the-floor grooves like "Tongues" and "Spleen" to abstract, broken-beat pieces such as "Oblique," "Torso," and "Mouth." Each composition stays intimate while pushing the album's central theme further.
The remixes and the label
SKIN is a milestone for NOETIC. David Castellani's label has hosted remixes from Redshape, Matrixxman, Voiski, Etapp Kyle, and Truncate, along with Castellani's recent collaborative EP with Japanese techno legend Ken Ishii. This is the label's first album, and Rojas is the first artist from outside its core to deliver a full body of original work.
The partnership grew out of friendship. Rojas and Castellani met in 2023 and quickly connected over music and gear, and that connection is how SKIN found its home.
Three remixes round out the release. Castellani himself teams up with LA's own Trovarsi on "Torso," pushing the track's intensity even higher. Trovarsi is an artist we've had love for in this city for a long time, and hearing that sound meet Castellani's is one of the album's high points.
MAEDON takes on "Spleen." A close collaborator of the label who has appeared across multiple NOETIC releases, MAEDON bends the album's most hypnotic techno cut into something warped and twisted. It's a fitting move for a track built on the idea of the body pulled out of shape.
UNFUCKABLE closes the album with a remix of "Mouth." The project pairs David Castellani with Brittney Vandal, and their version adds a striking vocal line to a track that was already about two voices talking over each other. It gives the original a voice in the most literal sense, and it's a bold way to end the record.
About John Rojas
Before going solo, Rojas spent years playing heavy music in a run of boundary-pushing bands, including MACHINEKIT, La Bella, Brainfreeze, and Badmouth. A student of every genre, he takes his detailed, methodical approach to electronics apart on SKIN and rebuilds his instincts with a new, darker maturity.
Based in LA, Rojas has been a working musician for 20 years and owns and operates Machinehouse Audio in Orange, CA. He has long been a core part of both the electronic/techno and punk/hardcore communities. His work pairs punk's DIY ethic with the spirit of techno, drawing on deep roots in underground culture.
Tracklist
- Tongues
- Oblique
- Torso
- Mouth
- Spleen
- Torso (Trovarsi & David Castellani Remix)
- Spleen (MAEDON Remix)
- Mouth (UNFUCKABLE Remix)
SKIN by John Rojas is out October 9 on NOETIC. Days later, Rojas goes back-to-back-to-back with David Castellani and Chris Liebing at Noetic x KEYI during ADE 2026.
CONNECT WITH JOHN ROJAS:
INSTAGRAM
WEBSITE
BANDCAMP
SPOTIFY
SOUNDCLOUD