Ecuador’s Nicola Cruz has been a pivotal figure in recent electronic music, largely introducing the sounds of Andean music into the lexicon. He’s regarded as a pioneer in evolving the sound of Latin American tradition for the modern world, pulling from its rich instrumentation and rhythmic design to create transportive and atmospheric compositions. His music has mostly fallen into the realm of what many consider balearic house; downtempo, blissfully chill formulations that draw from deep cultural roots. He’s a scholar of Andean tradition, seeking out ancient practices and rituals as inspiration for his work. His debut album Siku found itself occupied with the traditional Andean wind instrument of the same name, and around this Cruz built a sonic palette that traversed the ancient and the contemporary, pulling from the folk instruments of his own and other cultures and fusing these with electronica. The result was a spiritual, New Age journey through ritual and tradition with one foot in the past and the other in the future. This swing between the past and present is what forms the basis of his latest EP, Self Oscillation. It is also Cruz like we’ve never quite heard him before, leaning more into his electronic instincts to produce something significantly more propulsive than what has come before it.
Across its five tracks, Self Oscillation retains the worldly, New Age energy of Cruz’s sound but pushes these motifs into the sphere of club music. The experimentation results in interesting juxtapositions between the traditional and the contemporary. Cruz’s music is innately elemental, with Siku for instance finding its mood in fire and earth. Here, he finds himself occupied with the humid, sub-tropical atmosphere of afro-caribbean sounds, what he refers to as “aqueous explorations.” He mostly interprets these “aqueous” inspirations as squelchy acid synth riffs and deep, aquatic bass. Opening track Cadera interpolates soca rhythms, but in this Cruz identifies links to acid house and techno. Using the rhythmic pattern as a backbone, he fills Cadera with squiggling modular synths and snatches of distorted vocal samples. Residual Heat dives into cumbian, reminiscent of DJ Python and Arca’s recent reggaeton experiments. On Surface Tension, these modular squiggles bubble and writhe through waves of distortion to simulate the experience of being underwater, while on the title track they’re fused with a steady conga rhythm and dampened to echo the turbulence of changing tides. They feel most successful on Pulso Invisible, a standout which echoes Cruz’s previous work most but is distinct in its approach. Creating the atmosphere of the sub-tropical landscape that he finds himself inspired by, Pulso Invisible takes shape as a tight, compact ball of polyrhythms and closely intertwined modular riffs. Like his previous work, it’s transportive, the unpredictability of the swarthy rainforest coming to life through Cruz’s masterful use of tension. By keeping everything pressurised, he creates a distinct sense of hot unease and allows the landscape to paint itself.
Download and stream Self Oscillation here
Self Oscillation presents Cruz with an interesting challenge; to transpose the natural by way of the mechanical. It’s a challenge he mostly rises to, without sacrificing too much of his scholarly approach. But while the sound of Self Oscillation may be an unexpected turn from Cruz, at times it feels a touch too referential to artists who’ve attempted to locate their work in similar locales. Still, when it works it does so evocatively, proving that Cruz remains a true master of atmosphere.
Listen to Pulso Invisible from Self Oscillation below
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