Silent Servant

Silent Servant was the primary pseudonym of California electronic artist Juan Mendez, who produced techno with a heavy post-punk/industrial influence. He first began releasing material as Silent Servant during the mid-2000s, when he was a key member of the influential techno collective <a href="spotify:artist:51CANyDEIfgYt0mwLKCpZ6">Sandwell District</a>. Following numerous well-received underground singles, he made a major impact on the techno world with Negative Fascination, his acclaimed 2012 full-length debut. Following Mendez's co-founding of the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Jealous+God%22">Jealous God</a> label in 2013, as well as several singles and collaborations with the likes of <a href="spotify:artist:1sxHp39RqBEE01pgVqsdyP">Marcel Dettmann</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1jjplgZcgCwhU7JlGhBQiw">Phase Fatale</a>, Silent Servant released his second album, the more overtly EBM-influenced Shadows of Death and Desire, in 2018.

With a musical history stretching back to the mid-'90s, Mendez was no stranger to the techno scene. Originally producing as <a href="spotify:artist:43be9rg163Yq0jVlnsp4WD">Jasper</a> and running the experimental techno label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Cytrax%22">Cytrax</a>, Mendez befriended Karl O’Connor (<a href="spotify:artist:4erwZm1JybuSPTUg5Bu7nT">Regis</a>) at the end of the nineties and formed a long-lasting friendship that helped develop the Silent Servant sound. Mendez became affiliated with the <a href="spotify:artist:51CANyDEIfgYt0mwLKCpZ6">Sandwell District</a> label/music collective -- along with O’Connor, Dave Sumner (<a href="spotify:artist:6eu3TBnYM3SrkUU59SFhgp">Function</a>), and Peter Sutton (<a href="spotify:artist:4pKfUzWJMtmMRralg9JPDz">Female</a>) -- serving as its art director, and it wasn't long before the first Silent Servant material emerged. 2006's The Silent Morning mined the experimental sound that he'd produced as <a href="spotify:artist:43be9rg163Yq0jVlnsp4WD">Jasper</a>, while also drawing on Karl O'Connor's industrial-influenced style of techno that his label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Downwards%22">Downwards</a> had become known for.

2008 saw the release of two more 12" singles, "Violencia" and "The Blood of Our King," both on <a href="spotify:artist:51CANyDEIfgYt0mwLKCpZ6">Sandwell District</a>. Splitting his time between the <a href="spotify:artist:51CANyDEIfgYt0mwLKCpZ6">Sandwell District</a> project while helping his wife, Camella Lobo's own outfit <a href="spotify:artist:3qFOpjNiYRuQNVl564TGgO">Tropic of Cancer</a>, Mendez's Silent Servant output slowly gathered pace. A handful of releases between 2009 and 2011 -- most notably Negative Fascination, El Mar, and Hypnosis in the Modern Age -- saw the Silent Servant sound evolve. With the <a href="spotify:artist:51CANyDEIfgYt0mwLKCpZ6">Sandwell</a> label brought to a close at the end of 2011, Mendez focused on recording what would become his debut album, and a chance meeting with Dominic Fernow (<a href="spotify:artist:1b6p8KZ14dw35fuIuDWQNV">Vatican Shadow</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:00NwpiTtYKYzE6yEhSbFIk">Prurient</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1ssulsHf3JrWakLxa8yFad">Cold Cave</a>) enabled Mendez to sign the unfinished album to Fernow’s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Hospital+Productions%22">Hospital Productions</a> label. Released in 2012, Negative Fascination brought together all of Mendez's influences: his early techno productions as <a href="spotify:artist:43be9rg163Yq0jVlnsp4WD">Jasper</a>, the shoegaze and post-punk sound of <a href="spotify:artist:3qFOpjNiYRuQNVl564TGgO">Tropic of Cancer</a>, and the industrial-techno of <a href="spotify:artist:51CANyDEIfgYt0mwLKCpZ6">Sandwell District</a> and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Downwards%22">Downwards</a>.

In 2013, Mendez co-founded the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Jealous+God%22">Jealous God</a> label, along with O'Connor and <a href="spotify:artist:1CxlOLe7rJ6EO7aPMxi9Xx">James Ruskin</a>. <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Jealous+God%22">Jealous God</a> focused on industrial-influenced techno via early releases, including 12"s by Silent Servant and <a href="spotify:artist:1CxlOLe7rJ6EO7aPMxi9Xx">Ruskin</a> as well as <a href="spotify:artist:41BuWEgy0LACzk4e3M9RDq">Broken English Club</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:29N3bIyUc2ABA0jv1Ugotj">In Aeternam Vale</a>. Mendez produced visual art as Silent Editions, and as Silent Servant, he released singles and EPs on labels like <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Mote-Evolver%22">Mote-Evolver</a> (History Survivors, with <a href="spotify:artist:0BlPI3UKzTcN2jf0gCa0b9">Lucy</a>) and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Cititrax%22">Cititrax</a> (Violence and Divinity, with <a href="spotify:artist:41BuWEgy0LACzk4e3M9RDq">Broken English Club</a>). Hypnosis in the Modern Age, Vol. 2 appeared on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22L.I.E.S.%22">L.I.E.S.</a> in 2016. In 2018, Silent Servant and <a href="spotify:artist:1jjplgZcgCwhU7JlGhBQiw">Phase Fatale</a> collaborated on Confess, the first release by the BITE label. He then returned to <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Hospital+Productions%22">Hospital Productions</a> with the Harm in Hand EP, which explored his EBM and post-punk influences more explicitly than his past material. The subsequent full-length, Shadows of Death and Desire, continued in this direction. Juan Mendez passed away on January 18, 2024. ~ Richard Wilson & Paul Simpson, Rovi