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Over the past two decades, Chilean-German vocalist and producer Matías Aguayo’s mutable, instinctive singing has been an instantly identifiable ingredient of leftfield electronic music. On Battles’ 2011 track Ice Cream, he squealed and tripped through syllables against a thunderous synth backing, while Japanese synth-pop group Crystal’s 2017 track Kimi Wa Monster saw Ayuayo singing a keening, childlike melody over instrumental. His own releases featured layered chants and scatter-gun vocal rhythms over pulsing Afro-Latin beats. While his last record, 2019’s Support Alien Invasion, marked his first foray into instrumental music, Anenoa heralds Aguayo’s welcome return to the mic across a selection of hard-hitting, dancefloor-focused arrangements.
The fast-paced syncopated Latin rhythm of opener Sentimientos Encontraos sets the ebullient tone, with Aguayo’s nonchalant repetition of the title creating a hypnotic motif as bubbling and kinetic as the beat. Sprechgesang gives way to soulful falsetto on the ghetto house-influenced Asuka, Rock, Roll, while vocal processing transforms Aguayo’s party chants into a growling baritone on thumping trance number Avestruz en Veracruz. On the 80s-styled synth-pop of La Heredera, he croons delicately alongside featured Latin American singers Iarahei and Camille Mandoki.
There’s a playfulness to every vocal decision, veering from chipmunk high-pitched tones on Anenoa Pt 1 to the languorous listing of percussion instruments – “the snare, the cowbell, the shaker” – on funky highlight The Beat, as if Aguayo has been led purely by whim each time he steps into the booth. It gives the record an infectious, lively energy, encouraging listeners to turn up the volume and dance to Aguayo’s irrepressible sounds, no matter where his shapeshifting voice might take them next.
Also out this month
British-Egyptian duo Natacha Atlas and Samy Bishai release Parallel Universe Volume 1 (Airfono), blending melismatic Arabic vocals with a fascinating range of backing tracks, from maghrebi trip-hop on Unchanging Game to ney flute and trap bass on the menacing Somoud, with the genre-hopping always anchored in Atlas’s magnetic voice. French-Iranian producer Cinna Peyghamy’s Music for Tombak & Synth (Other People) sculpts eerie sound worlds from the ancient Persian percussion instrument, producing abstract dancefloor pressure via palm-struck bass tones and finger-flicked highs. Pakistani-American vocalist Ali Sethi soars alongside drummer and producer Gregory Rogove on their debut album Room Jhoom (self-released). Minimal arrangements of finger-picked guitar and scattered electronic drums give Sethi’s classically trained vocals ample space to transmit yearning emotion.
