Girar

Diskotopia is extremely proud to kick-start 2019 with Girar, a four-track EP of new kaleidoscopic productions from Lisbon-born, London-based producer Silvestre.

Silvestre is no stranger to Diskotopia, this being his third release with the label, debuting with the gritty noise-and-thump Frank Pike EP in 2014, and following that up with the more buoyant, latinate Floresta EP in 2016. In addition to producing, Silvestre also co-runs the Padre Himalya imprint, putting out 2018's critically acclaimed Focus EP from tombak virtuoso Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, Renato's 2016 Alo Alo, plus his own Sport Theories and All The Things 12"s.

With the Girar EP, Silvestre continues to embrace the sonic culture-frictions between his home country and his adopted one. In doing so, he has created a pan-continental sound in which coarse-grained Ibero-percussive threads intertwine with digi-tropical synthetic tapestries; testimony of a truly unique and exciting artist in the modern current of electronic music.

Opening with the bubbling Ir a Sagres, Silvestre constructs a basement-born psychotropic rhumba groove, strapped with fluttering arpeggios, nimble conga tappings and a firmly locked-in bassline. Following on, Deptford Bus is a woozier, mid-tempo spliff-house roller, stripped of the flora to leave a simple set up of haunted pads, crisp toms, and a deep sense of unease.

RC Surfer is perhaps the finest example of a soundclash of reggaeton, shoegaze and dub put to wax in recent memory. Here, Silvestre provides an ethereal soundscape with images of late-summer wining in city squares materializing through the cracks of the stoic riddims.

The Girar EP rounds out with the pseudo-rapturous Everybody Is Happy, a slice of breakbeat-house that nods lovingly to the halcyon days of rave past whilst holding a mirror at the present day with an unabating painted-on smile.