Genuine Caveman Disco Sound

The title of the post is taken from Comeme Label head Matias Aguayo's description of the Xalapa, Mexico based Rebolledo.



Aguayo is a fascinating figure himself; after being part of Closer Musik, one of the founding minimal techno bands to be featured on the Kompakt label, Aguayo retreated from Cologne and headed back to Chile, where he started a solo career based on strange, divisive dance tracks based on latin rhythms and sampled voices. He started playing Bumbumbox Parties, dance events in public places that used cobbled together sound-systems and played music far from the usual material.

I personally love the videos Rebolledo uses for his tracks; cheap and persistent, just like his music, they run right up to the edge of being a joke and look down into the chasm, floating away on force of will alone.

Taking Latin rhythms and using them for white dance music has been in vogue since the Pet Shop Boys and Madonna did it in the late 80s, and the tendency has resurfaced in recent years. Aguayo, Rebolledo, and their cohorts do something else, using the techniques of Latin pop and dance music to explode the conventions of modern techno and dance and get something very different, but still completely functional as dance music. The ironic thing is that, despite being perverse by the dictates of the dance club, their music is ultimately more accessible to the listener who is not already indoctrinated into those styles.

On the other side of the equation, though, is his Pachanga Boys collaboration with Superpitcher, where any thought of dance music is left behind, and we just get strange, off-kilter art, if that is the right word at all.