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RA.824 Nicolá Cruz

Published
Mar 20, 2022
Filesize
169 MB
Length
01:13:50

Interlocking polyrhythms and swung beats from one of Ecuador's finest.
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Nicolá Cruz is a master of meaningful engagement. Whether he's studying North African melodies or spiritual chants, he shows profound respect for a given sound's cultural context. This is evident across his entire discography. His earliest releases on Multi Culti and ZZK Records layerered traditional woodwinds and percussion with folktronica and tribal house, reflecting a holistic understanding of global rhythms. His more recent work takes an adventurous, polyglot approach to club music, with EPs on Highlife, Rhythm Section and Tra Tra Trax exploring breaks, acid and other spirally sounds. But even his deep, drum-heavy techno cuts feel unusually organic, vibrant polyrhythms bursting with character. For his RA Podcast, the Ecuador-based producer shows off his rave education. This display of futuristic chuggers and electro—Marcela Dias Sindaco's "A Flor Da Pele" is a particular highlight—speaks to Cruz's deep appreciation for body music. He treats dance floor jams with the same nuance as culturally significant sounds, a testament to his versatility, knowledge and experience. Journeying across acid basslines and dubby electronics, the 73 minute-long ride flirts with psychedelia, distortion and experimental bleeps, with many of the selections reflecting his own taste for colorful patterns. It's energetic and warm, flush with life, until the very end. What are you grateful for these days? Definitely grateful to be in good company. To be conscious, even if this sounds redundant. I'm talking about those little things… being aware keeps me humble, lets me discern about many things that occur in my life, helps me grow. Live to create and create to live. How and where was the mix recorded? And can you tell us the idea behind it? The mix was recorded in my livingroom, a Thursday, rainy afternoon, with two SL-1200s, CDJs, Isonoe 420. The idea behind it was to play my latest digs and records I've been playing in Ecuador these past few months. Because I mostly tour playing live, I'm not able to bring my records along (it's too much to carry the live rig + vinyl!) so it's nice to be comfortable at home recording this sort of flow. Do you approach live sets differently than DJ performances? 100 percent differently. Playing your own material is quite intimate, personal. This creates a totally different reaction from yourself to the audience and vice versa, especially when you are trying out new songs. Of course there's the obvious: dealing with machines, the improvisation, the format, but energetically it does go somewhere else as it feels freer of form. Also the fact that the live set usually lasts around one hour gives you a short time to round the trip up, which is interesting, always extremely exciting. When it comes to DJing, I rarely play my stuff. I leave that for the live show as I prefer remixing my tracks live than playing them as they are. Esepcially what I like about DJing is playing hours long to really create immersion. What are some stereotypes of South American music that you would like the world to move past? Speaking of South American electronic music, I feel there's a huge spectrum of genres, sonorities, collectives, labels, experiments etc that are being (and have been) manifested. From experimental compositions of the Ecuadorian artist Mesias Maiguashca (who studied with Stockhausen himself) to Mexico's Jorge Reyes, to labels like Peru's Buh Records, which in my opinion is the hottest label from the region at the moment, bringing to light a lot of sonic experiments from past and present, to contemporary collectives like Hiedrah, Tratratrax and Mamba Negra which are leading the front of an artistic and political movement through their parties. All this to mention the variety of flavors within a region that has sometimes been overlooked by media, discredited or stereotyped into vague genres. The exotic vision that the western media has about us is not accurate. Your last release, Sentimientos Encontrados, featured experimental dembow and reggaeton singer Isabella Lovestory. What are some other genres you'd like to explore in future productions? Somehow my new productions are leaning towards an "acid soca" aesthetic. I don't know if this will be for long, but I'm enjoying it. I've also been rediscovering breaks, and like I mentioned, I'm back to collaborating with singers, which I stopped doing for a while. Isabella is a great artist, so much fun working with her. What's one social or political cause you want the world to pay more attention to? Well, extractivism and mining in Ecuador, where I live, has definitely devastated the place exponentially in the last decades. The problem with legal or illegal mining lies in the emission of sediments, toxic waste, residues, all of which end up in the rivers, many times poisoning the main source of life of many communities, not to mention the environmental impact this creates in many zones and species. Certain habitats are so fragile, a little change will affect greatly. It's important to pay attention to this idea of extractivism and mining as an economic development, which completely condemns life here. What are you looking forward to in the near future? I think I'm ready for a third album. I've been giving this much thought lately. Being in "album mode" consumes a lot of me—a lot of my time, my creativity and effort—so I'm very cautious when I decide to enter this stage. It's been long since my last LP and I really enjoy the process, it pushes me to break many barriers and experiment to my limit, so I'm quite excited about that, to take the trip again. I've also been working on another project called Fauna Extinta for some years now, a more "Drexciyan" output of mine, so I'm eager to put some of that stuff out. Also excited about returning to Japan this year (hopefully). I have a big connection with the place.
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