Brimming with intense emotions, pulsating rhythms and softer ambient tones, “Incendios” is the Medellín producer and DJ Rainmaker’s debut album featuring seven tracks inspired heavily by the sounds of everyday life.
Brimming with intense emotions, pulsating rhythms and softer ambient tones, “Incendios” is the Medellín producer and DJ Rainmaker’s debut album featuring seven tracks inspired heavily by the sounds of everyday life.
The album begins with two ambient tracks brooding on the memories of a bustling cityscape. In the opening track “Nethir,” a woman’s voice is at once enduring and enervated. She could be proselytizing on the street, or attempting to provide a public service announcement to the disregarding traffic. Car horns blare in the background, dotting the timeline of the track’s skeletal backbeat. A high-pitched ambient whirl and soft, low pads give the feeling of a slow burn; as the track progresses, it leaves behind embers and ashes that gently settle or dissipate with the wind.
“Linea A,” a natural continuation of the “Nethir,” builds patiently upon panning chords and a resolved bass drum kick with a changing pattern that becomes a point of interest. The track picks up when a steady roll of sixteenths pulsate to the relaxed beat. Noise from voices speaking in a crowded place weaves in and out of the track, intensifying toward the end. One can imagine “Linea A” serving as the perfect opening to a techno mix by Rainmaker.
“Cenizas” breaks this mold, starting off with a scintillating beat with elements of breakbeats. A true highlight of this release, he phrases the beats with crescendos, diminuendos and varying attacks that round his beats with a human touch. When loose snare hits enter the mix, the mood shifts toward a grungier feel. Minor chords sustain through the latter half of the track, giving it a more downtempo, fluid feel.
The energy and intensity of the sixth track, “Todo lo que quema + purifica” (“Everything that burns + purifies”) is unmatched by anything else on this album. The high-energy opening beat preludes sounds of destruction and chaos from civil unrest. Rhythmic pounding and glass breaking follow from impassioned chanting. The beat falls away for a moment, giving acoustic space to hear shouts and jeers. When the original beat returns, we are thrown back into a cinematic experience of the unrest, a scene framed by the musical vehicle Rainmaker has constructed. It may be a reference to the 2019 – 2020 protests in Colombia that began with striking workers and expanded to teachers, students, and others who were frustrated with several issues concerning the country’s policies.
“Zenith” provides a lyrical finish to this album. The soft pitter-patter of rain and melancholic strings support the crooning vocalists who say “It needed to fall / Open your eyes, open the door / I’m the star that’s going to grow” in a soothing, forlorn melody. A fuller rhythm enters after the first verse, driving the song in resilient dance beats that carry this mournful melody.
Rainmaker dabbles in many styles with this first album, offering up a variety of tunes featuring his unique style of ambient techno that skillfully blends laidback, engineered beats with the spontaneity of sounds from everyday life.
-Lina Xing
Link – Bandcamp
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