Pitchfork
70
Two decades on, Ricardo Villalobos is well into the “Friends & Family” phase of his career: The Chilean-German electronic musician often goes for remixes or collaborations—with the likes of synthesist Max Loderbauer, for example, or guitarist Oren Ambarchi—over solo productions. This two-track EP, for Santiago’s Drumma Records, sees Villalobos team with fellow Chilean artist Umho as Ricmho. Like many of Villalobos’ scattered collaborations, you can be forgiven for not recognizing this particular partner in crime: Umho has a scant two releases to his name (which are themselves collaborations) despite a long-running and healthy DJ career.
Melo de Melo feels more substantial, owing to its nearly 30-minute runtime. Uhmo and Villalobos have frequently shared the DJ booth over the years, and the EP is billed as a celebration of their shared love for Latin American music. While Umho’s limited production record makes it difficult to suss out who contributed what, the EP is full of the quick, pitched percussion that dots typical Villalobos tracks. Squint and you can hear a conga, or a timbale, or a maraca, all deployed with a busyness foreign to stodgier, upbeat/downbeat dance patterns. Still, Melo de Melo scans as Latin American in pretty much the same manner all Villalobos productions do.
The A-side, “Por Suerte,” features a resonant ping played with considerable vigor and debatable purpose. It sticks out in a thicket of percussion that, for much of the track, masks a warm, evolving ambient melody. That melody breaks through in the track’s final minute as the pops and clicks fade, churning slowly and sounding considerably more reflective and calm than your average Villalobos work. The EP’s title track (credited only to Villalobos) begins more conventionally, with a steady kick and a sparring match between a conga and a snare. Halfway through, Villalobos introduces a long, evolving sample that sounds like a string quartet being kneaded into itself. By the end of the track, it’s a roughly diced, digitally charred wreck.
It’s a beautiful sequence, one that underlines how Villalobos seems increasingly interested in welding avant-garde composition and dance music. (See also: last year’s Vilod collaboration with Loderbauer, in which the duo wrung minimal jazz out of their synthesizers.) Villalobos remains commendably weird in almost every way, even if, as a project, Ricmho seems only half-formed. Ultimately, that’s why Melo de Melo underwhelms, however slightly: Villalobos has been churning out jammy, crumbling tracks like this for most of a decade at this point, and these are hardly the jammiest, or the most crumbly.
Thu Dec 15 06:00:00 GMT 2016