Silvestre - Sport Theories

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  • Renato's Alo Alo was a bold opening statement for a label. A patchwork of half-danceable samples with the odd madcap touch, it was difficult to predict and harder to pigeonhole. Padre Himalaya's second EP, from its other founder, Silvestre, is almost as strange. It opens brightly with the kitschy synth-disco of "Correr," whose arps form twinkling cascades over a biscuit-tin kick drum. But the mood soon shifts with "Onda," two minutes of inky synth wash, and "Weird Morning," whose beat shuffles at a zombie's pace under ghoulish moans. By the time we get back to a dance floor pulse, the Portuguese producer is in a more thoughtful mood. (A mood he's previously explored on a couple of dreamy EPs for Diskotopia.) There's something of Four Tet in "Prancha"'s pretty, cloudlike chimes and measured house groove. The one hint of mischief comes from a sampled bar of something—a snatch of distant strings, the whisper of a voice—that bursts out of the twilight every couple of minutes. "Track 3" is a dusty slow-stepper that gets weirder as it goes. The sidechained chords begin to woozily swirl, and then odd samples—shouts, terse piano chords, blasts of slap bass—start popping up, as if Silvestre's whacky side were straining to be free.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Correr A2 Onda A3 Weird Morning B1 Prancha B2 Track 3
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