Felipe Vaz :: Architecture and Distraction (Evel)

Fast beats and non-rhythms flicker and fracture, revealing what appears to be the unpolished insides of the tools employed during the creative process.

Felipe Vaz, a sound deconstructionist, researcher, and new media producer, debuted a leapling album for Barcelona based twisted electronics imprint, Evel, that consists of eleven tracks of jagged, abstract mechanical fractures. Fast beats and non-rhythms flicker and fracture, revealing what appears to be the unpolished insides of the tools employed during the creative process.

We almost detect a rhythmic flow in “Marie-Curie-Allee” as Vaz rearranges and incorporates melodic patterns and strands in the song’s closing moments. These compositions seem to take on a life of their own, leaving scattered clicks, cuts, and disjointed bleeps (see “Weitlingstrasse”) all over the place for us humans to decipher. “Heinrichstrasse” draws our attention with its swift gloss and futuristic electrical charges, while the tangled tetrad of “Sonnenhof” (“A” through “D”) feel like they’re stuck in saturated glitch until “D” dissolves with upper atmospheric drone textures.

A masterfully bizarre assortment of minuscule blips, pings, and beats that bring back memories of past Oval, Microstoria, and Alva Noto releases.