Throughout the album, there is musky woodiness to Cabrera’s meticulously programmed rhythms, hips swaying up the steps of Mayan ziggurats, which zigzags nicely with the sci-fi boogie of his synthesizers. Each piece follows its own eccentric space orbit, spearing forth as much as it boomerangs back.
J.C. is Spanish techno producer Jose Cabrera and Mugako is an industrial-strength crossbreed of distorted space oddity and callus-handed tribal drumming, the fifth and last entry in Semantica’s Exhibition Design series, each showcasing original cover art by Belfast’s Trudy Creen. All seven tracks have been given names that pull at least this imagination in the direction of ancient Mesoamerica. The opening track is actually a frazzled mayday, no doubt from one of those Erich von Dänekin flying saucers that can’t find its ancient Peruvian landing strip and is running out of fuel. J.C. converts the incipient ecstasy of crisis into the exhilarating “Bixi,” a flashy, infectious drum line march. “Eniatz” deploys fewer hands beating the skins but absolutely sizzles and slides.
Throughout the album, there is musky woodiness to Cabrera’s meticulously programmed rhythms, hips swaying up the steps of Mayan ziggurats, which zigzags nicely with the sci-fi boogie of his synthesizers. Each piece follows its own eccentric space orbit, spearing forth as much as it boomerangs back.
Mugako is heavy on the interrelationship of lines delineating organic figures as well as geometric shapes. “Apodaka” a fascinating example, a discussion sampled off the radio between increasingly petulant talking heads about the Bernie Sanders campaign, their tone manipulated into a frantic aural mosaic above a calming ice-cream truck of tinkling bells. Resetting for the album’s home stretch, “Itxaso” ignites fierce drum corps and, eyes on the skies, continues to blink as if eager for contact while remaining content enough on the lower end that it must be happy where it is.
Mugako is available on Semantica.
