The kitchen-sink style approach of including almost every existing genre on a release is on display at it’s most fun and creative here. Come for the fantastic selection of collaborators and stylistic pairings, stay for the Judith Butler sample.
Panflute driven downtempo lounge house isn’t something you hear every day, but neither is techno based on gender theory.
These are just two of the manifold hybrid offerings on the album Milonga Queer, a title which references a traditional musical style from the Rio de la Plata region of Argentina and Uruguay characterized by a 2/4 time signature and often believed to be a precursor to modern Tango.
The reference is salient: many of the tracks fuse classic South American instrumentation and rhythmic patterning with modern production and genre sensibilities which run from 95 all the way up to 200 BPM. It’s never boring or even a little bit copy-paste.
The EP is about half collaborations with other artists from all over South America, which lends a lot to the sonic disparateness of the elements at play. A sleek collaboration with Argentinian House superstar Manuel Sahagun is pure shimmering confection: an understated funky baseline pensively undulating beneath.
The album standout, “Performative,” sounds nothing like any of this: it samples UC Berkeley professor and preeminent gender theorist Judith Butler, turning her sage words into a slinky minimal bop. The track samples an interview Butler did for Big Think, in which she separates, with her characteristic razor precision, the ways in which gender is created or confirmed at every moment of our lives through ritual performance. Butler insists we must resist and usurp the violence imposed by ideal gender norms as an acid melody simmers overtop.
There’s also a fair amount of well-crafted, slowly unfurling techno and house. On “Pisa,” whistles and blares of horns interrupt a pummeling electro bassline. Some of these latter tracks generally share spiritual DNA with dub music, much of it is unhurried and even soothing in a way that might seem listless in less capable hands. But here the more ‘dub’ elements register as restraint. On “Ciao,” a near-interpolation of those iconic ‘Pump Up the Jam’ notes pair surprisingly well with stripped back breakbeat. “Buscando” almost sounds like a sped up, zestier selection from Air’s Moon Safari. You even get a bit of jazz at the end, paired with wobbling pads and speedy garage. This constant remixing and recontextutalizing of disparate elements is the main strength of this riotously fun and refreshing release.
-Winston Mann
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