- Inspired house mutations from the smartbar resident.
- Ariel Zetina says her new EP, MUAs At The End Of The World, is inspired by "the rhythms of putting on makeup." Based on these tracks, those rhythms are anything but routine. They're jerky, fitful and often harsh. The EP is a far cry from the sensitive house of her last one, The Shell, but it's no less striking. Here, the smartbar resident shows she's an inventive house producer, twisting the genre into jagged shapes like a bent paperclip.
The song you're most likely to hear out is probably "Vanity 7," a snarling cover of Prince protegé Vanity 6's "Make-Up." Zetina heightens the mechanistic feel, replacing the original bassline with a flat thud and removing any sense of melody from the lyrics, turning "Make-Up" into a fearsome club weapon that wouldn't be out of place at an Unter party. Surging trance arpeggio á la The Knife's "Silent Shout" point to the record's most startling aspect: the contrasts and the jolts. Throughout the EP, drums come and go unexpectedly, careening into sudden breakdowns. "Eyeshadow Fallout" features the kind of mallet percussion you'd hear in New Age music but sped up to a frantic pace. Respite comes only in the tender outro, "Compact Mirrors At The Bottom Of The Sea."
Zetina says MUAs At The End Of The World is about "the perception of makeup as armor, barrier, stealth," particularly for trans women needing to pass. You can feel that layered meaning across the EP. It portrays a life and identity in flux, expressive and heartfelt even at its most chaotic.
Tracklist01. Eyeshadow Fallout
02. Vanity 7
03. Bombshell
04. Channel
05. Compact Mirrors At The Bottom Of The Sea