The sickest club set we've come across this year, Lechuga Zafiro's debut album is a conspicuously audacious blueprint for fwd-thinking dancers, using field recordings to steer its time-fluxing, ectoplasmic rhythms. This one's way out there - hard swung and unwaveringly funky, it's the best example of club concrète we've heard yet, something like a psychedelic cocktail of Jon Hassell, aya, Siete Catorce and Errorsmith++
Not to be boxed in by raked-over drum machine thuds and TikTok-friendly Splice packs, Uruguayan sound design maven Zafiro taks an ascetic approach to his debut album, relying on self-sourced natural materials to power his frenetic productions. It won't be a huge surprise to anyone who was wowed by 2018's NAAFI-released 'Testigo' and its waterlogged stand-out 'Agua y Puerta', but Zafiro goes above and beyond here, refining his technique to the point where he distances himself from the wider scene at large by a heroic margin. He started with a bank of environmental recordings made in Uruguay, China, Chile, Portugal and El Salvador, where he listened to the local ambiance and captured the most arresting sounds - pigs, toads, birds and sea lions, to metal, wood, plastic, glass, rock and water. These different textures, each with their own unique sonic properties, give 'Desde los oídos de un sapo' (from the ears of a toad) a distinctive aura from the outset.
Opener 'Oreja Ácida' is as wiry and modish as anything you'd scrape off Siete Catorce's hard drive, but hits with a different kind of pressure. Zafiro's circumfluent Afro-Latin rhythms seem to goad one another, almost dissolving into the producer's mystical internal soundscape. What begins as vaporous clouds of stretched concrète eventually gives way to rubbery, slow-paced smacks that begin to assert Zafiro's dizzying sonic signature. It's not clear exactly what we're hearing at any given time, but it's not completely electronic, that's for sure: hollow knocks punctuate demented oinks, explosions and electrical zaps, forming a lilting rhythm that lurches into double-time before you've even had a chance to unlock its logic. Zafiro refuses to leave it there, flipping the script once again as he adds lip-smacking chomps, glassy gamelan and woodblock hits, careening a windy, rickety environmental recording that helps introduce lead single 'Botellharpa'.
Even more mind-boggling, this one cybernetically enhances a different suite of skittering samples, smudging Bangalter-like tonal rushes and plucky stutters around a febrile 4/4 thump, that Zafiro can't help but interrupt with brittle, zigzagging rhythmic interludes and hoarse noise. It's identifiably dancefloor-focused, but he takes every opportunity to challenge our perceptions. Even the album's beatless moments, like the effervescent 'Encause Destellante' and the comparatively moody title track that brings the album to a fittingly picturesque close, help add to the narrative, giving us time to breathe and reflect on Zafiro's motions. On the former, he layers synthetic Fourth World-adjacent cascades with pebbly waves to guarantee maximum hallucinogenic potential. And when we're dropped into 'Agua de Vidrio', those sloshing groundwaters are channeled into percussive interventions that buoy feathery concertina-ing scrapes.
Zafiro's virtuosic skills are laid bare on the fractal banger 'Tero Sex (Danza para piedra volcánica y tero), a track made from rhythmelodic (volcanic) rock taps and earthy scuffs that's as chaotically jaw-unhinging as anything coming from the Brazilian funk scene right now. And on 'Camo Rota', he takes us into the jungle, fixing warbling bird sounds to ratcheting Rian Treanor-strength drum workouts. He's almost poking at the wider scene into trying a little harder; there's no shortage of producers using field recordings to lend their songs the organic touch in a digital age, but it's too often mind-numbingly lazy - a loose gesture rather than a full-formed concept. Here, Zafiro throws down the gauntlet, both rhythmically and texturally, muddling GRM-style concrète and processes with some of the most satisfying drum programming we've heard in years. All this, and he infuses the controlled chaos with a mischievous sense of humor that too much bone-dry experimental music is lacking. We're hooked.
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The sickest club set we've come across this year, Lechuga Zafiro's debut album is a conspicuously audacious blueprint for fwd-thinking dancers, using field recordings to steer its time-fluxing, ectoplasmic rhythms. This one's way out there - hard swung and unwaveringly funky, it's the best example of club concrète we've heard yet, something like a psychedelic cocktail of Jon Hassell, aya, Siete Catorce and Errorsmith++
Not to be boxed in by raked-over drum machine thuds and TikTok-friendly Splice packs, Uruguayan sound design maven Zafiro taks an ascetic approach to his debut album, relying on self-sourced natural materials to power his frenetic productions. It won't be a huge surprise to anyone who was wowed by 2018's NAAFI-released 'Testigo' and its waterlogged stand-out 'Agua y Puerta', but Zafiro goes above and beyond here, refining his technique to the point where he distances himself from the wider scene at large by a heroic margin. He started with a bank of environmental recordings made in Uruguay, China, Chile, Portugal and El Salvador, where he listened to the local ambiance and captured the most arresting sounds - pigs, toads, birds and sea lions, to metal, wood, plastic, glass, rock and water. These different textures, each with their own unique sonic properties, give 'Desde los oídos de un sapo' (from the ears of a toad) a distinctive aura from the outset.
Opener 'Oreja Ácida' is as wiry and modish as anything you'd scrape off Siete Catorce's hard drive, but hits with a different kind of pressure. Zafiro's circumfluent Afro-Latin rhythms seem to goad one another, almost dissolving into the producer's mystical internal soundscape. What begins as vaporous clouds of stretched concrète eventually gives way to rubbery, slow-paced smacks that begin to assert Zafiro's dizzying sonic signature. It's not clear exactly what we're hearing at any given time, but it's not completely electronic, that's for sure: hollow knocks punctuate demented oinks, explosions and electrical zaps, forming a lilting rhythm that lurches into double-time before you've even had a chance to unlock its logic. Zafiro refuses to leave it there, flipping the script once again as he adds lip-smacking chomps, glassy gamelan and woodblock hits, careening a windy, rickety environmental recording that helps introduce lead single 'Botellharpa'.
Even more mind-boggling, this one cybernetically enhances a different suite of skittering samples, smudging Bangalter-like tonal rushes and plucky stutters around a febrile 4/4 thump, that Zafiro can't help but interrupt with brittle, zigzagging rhythmic interludes and hoarse noise. It's identifiably dancefloor-focused, but he takes every opportunity to challenge our perceptions. Even the album's beatless moments, like the effervescent 'Encause Destellante' and the comparatively moody title track that brings the album to a fittingly picturesque close, help add to the narrative, giving us time to breathe and reflect on Zafiro's motions. On the former, he layers synthetic Fourth World-adjacent cascades with pebbly waves to guarantee maximum hallucinogenic potential. And when we're dropped into 'Agua de Vidrio', those sloshing groundwaters are channeled into percussive interventions that buoy feathery concertina-ing scrapes.
Zafiro's virtuosic skills are laid bare on the fractal banger 'Tero Sex (Danza para piedra volcánica y tero), a track made from rhythmelodic (volcanic) rock taps and earthy scuffs that's as chaotically jaw-unhinging as anything coming from the Brazilian funk scene right now. And on 'Camo Rota', he takes us into the jungle, fixing warbling bird sounds to ratcheting Rian Treanor-strength drum workouts. He's almost poking at the wider scene into trying a little harder; there's no shortage of producers using field recordings to lend their songs the organic touch in a digital age, but it's too often mind-numbingly lazy - a loose gesture rather than a full-formed concept. Here, Zafiro throws down the gauntlet, both rhythmically and texturally, muddling GRM-style concrète and processes with some of the most satisfying drum programming we've heard in years. All this, and he infuses the controlled chaos with a mischievous sense of humor that too much bone-dry experimental music is lacking. We're hooked.
The sickest club set we've come across this year, Lechuga Zafiro's debut album is a conspicuously audacious blueprint for fwd-thinking dancers, using field recordings to steer its time-fluxing, ectoplasmic rhythms. This one's way out there - hard swung and unwaveringly funky, it's the best example of club concrète we've heard yet, something like a psychedelic cocktail of Jon Hassell, aya, Siete Catorce and Errorsmith++
Not to be boxed in by raked-over drum machine thuds and TikTok-friendly Splice packs, Uruguayan sound design maven Zafiro taks an ascetic approach to his debut album, relying on self-sourced natural materials to power his frenetic productions. It won't be a huge surprise to anyone who was wowed by 2018's NAAFI-released 'Testigo' and its waterlogged stand-out 'Agua y Puerta', but Zafiro goes above and beyond here, refining his technique to the point where he distances himself from the wider scene at large by a heroic margin. He started with a bank of environmental recordings made in Uruguay, China, Chile, Portugal and El Salvador, where he listened to the local ambiance and captured the most arresting sounds - pigs, toads, birds and sea lions, to metal, wood, plastic, glass, rock and water. These different textures, each with their own unique sonic properties, give 'Desde los oídos de un sapo' (from the ears of a toad) a distinctive aura from the outset.
Opener 'Oreja Ácida' is as wiry and modish as anything you'd scrape off Siete Catorce's hard drive, but hits with a different kind of pressure. Zafiro's circumfluent Afro-Latin rhythms seem to goad one another, almost dissolving into the producer's mystical internal soundscape. What begins as vaporous clouds of stretched concrète eventually gives way to rubbery, slow-paced smacks that begin to assert Zafiro's dizzying sonic signature. It's not clear exactly what we're hearing at any given time, but it's not completely electronic, that's for sure: hollow knocks punctuate demented oinks, explosions and electrical zaps, forming a lilting rhythm that lurches into double-time before you've even had a chance to unlock its logic. Zafiro refuses to leave it there, flipping the script once again as he adds lip-smacking chomps, glassy gamelan and woodblock hits, careening a windy, rickety environmental recording that helps introduce lead single 'Botellharpa'.
Even more mind-boggling, this one cybernetically enhances a different suite of skittering samples, smudging Bangalter-like tonal rushes and plucky stutters around a febrile 4/4 thump, that Zafiro can't help but interrupt with brittle, zigzagging rhythmic interludes and hoarse noise. It's identifiably dancefloor-focused, but he takes every opportunity to challenge our perceptions. Even the album's beatless moments, like the effervescent 'Encause Destellante' and the comparatively moody title track that brings the album to a fittingly picturesque close, help add to the narrative, giving us time to breathe and reflect on Zafiro's motions. On the former, he layers synthetic Fourth World-adjacent cascades with pebbly waves to guarantee maximum hallucinogenic potential. And when we're dropped into 'Agua de Vidrio', those sloshing groundwaters are channeled into percussive interventions that buoy feathery concertina-ing scrapes.
Zafiro's virtuosic skills are laid bare on the fractal banger 'Tero Sex (Danza para piedra volcánica y tero), a track made from rhythmelodic (volcanic) rock taps and earthy scuffs that's as chaotically jaw-unhinging as anything coming from the Brazilian funk scene right now. And on 'Camo Rota', he takes us into the jungle, fixing warbling bird sounds to ratcheting Rian Treanor-strength drum workouts. He's almost poking at the wider scene into trying a little harder; there's no shortage of producers using field recordings to lend their songs the organic touch in a digital age, but it's too often mind-numbingly lazy - a loose gesture rather than a full-formed concept. Here, Zafiro throws down the gauntlet, both rhythmically and texturally, muddling GRM-style concrète and processes with some of the most satisfying drum programming we've heard in years. All this, and he infuses the controlled chaos with a mischievous sense of humor that too much bone-dry experimental music is lacking. We're hooked.
The sickest club set we've come across this year, Lechuga Zafiro's debut album is a conspicuously audacious blueprint for fwd-thinking dancers, using field recordings to steer its time-fluxing, ectoplasmic rhythms. This one's way out there - hard swung and unwaveringly funky, it's the best example of club concrète we've heard yet, something like a psychedelic cocktail of Jon Hassell, aya, Siete Catorce and Errorsmith++
Not to be boxed in by raked-over drum machine thuds and TikTok-friendly Splice packs, Uruguayan sound design maven Zafiro taks an ascetic approach to his debut album, relying on self-sourced natural materials to power his frenetic productions. It won't be a huge surprise to anyone who was wowed by 2018's NAAFI-released 'Testigo' and its waterlogged stand-out 'Agua y Puerta', but Zafiro goes above and beyond here, refining his technique to the point where he distances himself from the wider scene at large by a heroic margin. He started with a bank of environmental recordings made in Uruguay, China, Chile, Portugal and El Salvador, where he listened to the local ambiance and captured the most arresting sounds - pigs, toads, birds and sea lions, to metal, wood, plastic, glass, rock and water. These different textures, each with their own unique sonic properties, give 'Desde los oídos de un sapo' (from the ears of a toad) a distinctive aura from the outset.
Opener 'Oreja Ácida' is as wiry and modish as anything you'd scrape off Siete Catorce's hard drive, but hits with a different kind of pressure. Zafiro's circumfluent Afro-Latin rhythms seem to goad one another, almost dissolving into the producer's mystical internal soundscape. What begins as vaporous clouds of stretched concrète eventually gives way to rubbery, slow-paced smacks that begin to assert Zafiro's dizzying sonic signature. It's not clear exactly what we're hearing at any given time, but it's not completely electronic, that's for sure: hollow knocks punctuate demented oinks, explosions and electrical zaps, forming a lilting rhythm that lurches into double-time before you've even had a chance to unlock its logic. Zafiro refuses to leave it there, flipping the script once again as he adds lip-smacking chomps, glassy gamelan and woodblock hits, careening a windy, rickety environmental recording that helps introduce lead single 'Botellharpa'.
Even more mind-boggling, this one cybernetically enhances a different suite of skittering samples, smudging Bangalter-like tonal rushes and plucky stutters around a febrile 4/4 thump, that Zafiro can't help but interrupt with brittle, zigzagging rhythmic interludes and hoarse noise. It's identifiably dancefloor-focused, but he takes every opportunity to challenge our perceptions. Even the album's beatless moments, like the effervescent 'Encause Destellante' and the comparatively moody title track that brings the album to a fittingly picturesque close, help add to the narrative, giving us time to breathe and reflect on Zafiro's motions. On the former, he layers synthetic Fourth World-adjacent cascades with pebbly waves to guarantee maximum hallucinogenic potential. And when we're dropped into 'Agua de Vidrio', those sloshing groundwaters are channeled into percussive interventions that buoy feathery concertina-ing scrapes.
Zafiro's virtuosic skills are laid bare on the fractal banger 'Tero Sex (Danza para piedra volcánica y tero), a track made from rhythmelodic (volcanic) rock taps and earthy scuffs that's as chaotically jaw-unhinging as anything coming from the Brazilian funk scene right now. And on 'Camo Rota', he takes us into the jungle, fixing warbling bird sounds to ratcheting Rian Treanor-strength drum workouts. He's almost poking at the wider scene into trying a little harder; there's no shortage of producers using field recordings to lend their songs the organic touch in a digital age, but it's too often mind-numbingly lazy - a loose gesture rather than a full-formed concept. Here, Zafiro throws down the gauntlet, both rhythmically and texturally, muddling GRM-style concrète and processes with some of the most satisfying drum programming we've heard in years. All this, and he infuses the controlled chaos with a mischievous sense of humor that too much bone-dry experimental music is lacking. We're hooked.
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The sickest club set we've come across this year, Lechuga Zafiro's debut album is a conspicuously audacious blueprint for fwd-thinking dancers, using field recordings to steer its time-fluxing, ectoplasmic rhythms. This one's way out there - hard swung and unwaveringly funky, it's the best example of club concrète we've heard yet, something like a psychedelic cocktail of Jon Hassell, aya, Siete Catorce and Errorsmith++
Not to be boxed in by raked-over drum machine thuds and TikTok-friendly Splice packs, Uruguayan sound design maven Zafiro taks an ascetic approach to his debut album, relying on self-sourced natural materials to power his frenetic productions. It won't be a huge surprise to anyone who was wowed by 2018's NAAFI-released 'Testigo' and its waterlogged stand-out 'Agua y Puerta', but Zafiro goes above and beyond here, refining his technique to the point where he distances himself from the wider scene at large by a heroic margin. He started with a bank of environmental recordings made in Uruguay, China, Chile, Portugal and El Salvador, where he listened to the local ambiance and captured the most arresting sounds - pigs, toads, birds and sea lions, to metal, wood, plastic, glass, rock and water. These different textures, each with their own unique sonic properties, give 'Desde los oídos de un sapo' (from the ears of a toad) a distinctive aura from the outset.
Opener 'Oreja Ácida' is as wiry and modish as anything you'd scrape off Siete Catorce's hard drive, but hits with a different kind of pressure. Zafiro's circumfluent Afro-Latin rhythms seem to goad one another, almost dissolving into the producer's mystical internal soundscape. What begins as vaporous clouds of stretched concrète eventually gives way to rubbery, slow-paced smacks that begin to assert Zafiro's dizzying sonic signature. It's not clear exactly what we're hearing at any given time, but it's not completely electronic, that's for sure: hollow knocks punctuate demented oinks, explosions and electrical zaps, forming a lilting rhythm that lurches into double-time before you've even had a chance to unlock its logic. Zafiro refuses to leave it there, flipping the script once again as he adds lip-smacking chomps, glassy gamelan and woodblock hits, careening a windy, rickety environmental recording that helps introduce lead single 'Botellharpa'.
Even more mind-boggling, this one cybernetically enhances a different suite of skittering samples, smudging Bangalter-like tonal rushes and plucky stutters around a febrile 4/4 thump, that Zafiro can't help but interrupt with brittle, zigzagging rhythmic interludes and hoarse noise. It's identifiably dancefloor-focused, but he takes every opportunity to challenge our perceptions. Even the album's beatless moments, like the effervescent 'Encause Destellante' and the comparatively moody title track that brings the album to a fittingly picturesque close, help add to the narrative, giving us time to breathe and reflect on Zafiro's motions. On the former, he layers synthetic Fourth World-adjacent cascades with pebbly waves to guarantee maximum hallucinogenic potential. And when we're dropped into 'Agua de Vidrio', those sloshing groundwaters are channeled into percussive interventions that buoy feathery concertina-ing scrapes.
Zafiro's virtuosic skills are laid bare on the fractal banger 'Tero Sex (Danza para piedra volcánica y tero), a track made from rhythmelodic (volcanic) rock taps and earthy scuffs that's as chaotically jaw-unhinging as anything coming from the Brazilian funk scene right now. And on 'Camo Rota', he takes us into the jungle, fixing warbling bird sounds to ratcheting Rian Treanor-strength drum workouts. He's almost poking at the wider scene into trying a little harder; there's no shortage of producers using field recordings to lend their songs the organic touch in a digital age, but it's too often mind-numbingly lazy - a loose gesture rather than a full-formed concept. Here, Zafiro throws down the gauntlet, both rhythmically and texturally, muddling GRM-style concrète and processes with some of the most satisfying drum programming we've heard in years. All this, and he infuses the controlled chaos with a mischievous sense of humor that too much bone-dry experimental music is lacking. We're hooked.