CADENZA40

Cadenza returns to its Chilean roots with a new EP from rising talents Felipe Venegas and Francisco Allendes. This is their first record for the label, but they've been stirring up trouble for a while now. Felipe Venegas racked up a handful of digital releases before his vinyl debut last summer with the Pa Bailar y Pa Gozar EP on Immigrant. Francisco Allendes has been releasing music under his own name since 2003, but in recent years he's been best known for the duo Monomachine, with Iñigo Oruezabal, responsible for records on Catwash, Paradigma and his own Andes Music label. Together, they combine their influences—sturdy tech-house, classical minimalism, Chilean folk music and scads of Afro- Latin percussion—into three tracks that put a fresh twist on the classic Cadenza sound.

"Llovizna" is a marvel to behold, wrapping itself in velvety, ribbon-like arpeggios that recall the soft, rounded melodies of Loco Dice's "Paradiso" and Luciano and Thomas Melchior's "Father." But as pretty as it is, this is no shrinking violet. A fierce, muscular rhythm section gives the track its unusual power. It's all about the study in contrasts, with bells and shakers falling in a fine, regular mist, interrupted by thundering drum fills. A long passage of Spanish- language folksong forms the song's hushed, expectant centerpiece; finally, the percussion grows in intensity, a sparkling fusion of acoustic timbres and electronic frequencies, setting the scene for the track's expansive finale—a tour de force of lush, tender synthesizers following a meandering and mesmerizing path to some secret destination.

"Parrot Plot" jumps into the thick of things with tight, springy percussion, flickering vocal shots and a taut trampoline of a bassline. It's a drum track, a tool, if you will, but Venegas and Allendes' unusual rhythmic flair pulls more than its own weight. Once again, the rhythm is an electrifying mixture of acoustic percussion, analog slap and hiss, and psychoacoustic effects, with beats exploding like a hive of neon bees. A brief sample of old-school Latin jazz opens up a wormhole to a distant time and place, but the bulk of the action takes place on the plane of the here and now, skittering across a hall of mirrors towards infinity.