WIDE Recomienda: #0025
Three Latin American indie electronic releases, a weird hybrid of baile funk and soul and a heatseeker vid from an indie pop star in the making. For those who wanna stay hip, there’s WIDE Recommends!
1. Branko – Stand By (feat. Umi Copper)
It’s hard to locate the exact feeling that this track evokes. Featuring a very unusual combination of baile funk beats and soul-ish vocals, it strikes us as longing, pondersome and seductive with a tinge of sadness; this complex emotional bouquet is mirrored by an eclectic sound palette, with the main chords on a slow tremolo which is then adorned by the complex afro-portuguese percussion, pitch bent vocal samples brought to woodwind textures and Umi Copper’s chorused croon for a wide and spacious mix as expected from Branko’s production mastery.
2. Foex – Nicanor
Chilean producers Foex and Paulopulus got together for a nice little single released on the Arrhytmia Netlabel catalogue, dedicated to electronic and beat-based music returning towards the instrumental, with a very jazzy results. Foex’s contribution, ‘Nicanor’, is a terribly loungesome track that will make you feel like you’re either in an art curatorship or pretentious hipster coffee shop on a rainy sundown, driven by a thick, milky sinewave bassline, the sleaziest electric piano chords you’ve ever heard and gritty samples from a recital of the notorious poet the track is named after.
3. Aristidez – Turquesas
The co-founder of Lima’s party-people collective CasaLocasa shows us his usual nostalgic and flavourful synth sounds on this new dembow/house piece with a very confusing time signature, his contribution to the Club Sauna Vol. 2 collab tailored by the chilean netlabel Discos Pato Carlos and many of their guests from Latin America (and Germany). Quite the accomplishment in music production and internet marketing!
4. Hitch – Street Me Out EP
Our compadres from Makinmovs have just released an EP made by their friend and long time collaborator Hitch. Street Me Out is quite the contribution to the label’s known hyper-stylized and convulsed aesthetic and Chile’s own footwork scene. Using a sound palette brought to a chilly 15° celcius packed with electric purrs and a minimalist drum kits of delicious textures, Hitch has composed five tracks (including a collab with Veritas) that go back and forth between fancy, nostalgic and kitsch: cheesy drum machine sounds remind us of ‘90 house music from the likes of 808 State whilst the glacial atmosphere of the mix lands on a very Funkstorung-y vibe to the beat of Frankie Knuckles. Kinda hard to imagine but positively delightful!
5. IAMDDB – Kurr£ncy
Disheveled, self-reliant ways, mocking exes, xanax and money-money-money. Does it sound like 2018’s hip-hop? Indeed. Jumping on the bandwagon with unprecedented suave and throatyness comes Diana DeBrito, prantzing around Tokyo streets caught off-guard. A soundtrack for hotboxing sessions as there ever was.