- The Ecuadorian artist's second outing on Rhythm Section features his most confident and effortlessly creative rhythms yet.
- Ecuadorian producer Nicola Cruz makes electronic music influenced by the rhythms of his Andean ancestors. At times his releases have bordered on tropical house—perhaps more likely to evoke images of a beach bar in Ibiza than the Andes or the Amazon—while others were eclectic showcases of folk traditions from across South and Central America. Self Oscillations, his second EP for Bradley Zero's Rhythm Section International label, avoids both extremes, instead charting murky waters between traditions and landing somewhere new.
The way Cruz juggles traditional rhythms keeps the EP loosely grounded to its Afro-Latin roots. Polyrhythmic layers of hi-hats, light mallet hits and full-bodied kick drums are tossed back and forth like a hot potato on the title track, while "Cadera" is almost viscous in comparison, the sub-bass adding a gloopy contrast to the skipping soca rhythm.
Variety like this gives the Self-Oscillation its colorful, undulating topography, and keeps it from falling into the flat chug of some of Cruz's earlier releases. Scat-singing samples over "Neo Costeno"'s plodding house beat, for example, enliven it with a touch of character. Acid synths bristle like a gremlin beneath "Surface Tension"'s Drexciyan electro, while "Pulso Invisibile"'s washed-up vocal stabs complement its wonderfully rugged backdrop of tape delay.
Similar to Cruz's 2020 release on Optimo, Fuego Nuevo, it's the rougher textures that steal the show here. But unlike its Glaswegian counterpart, which had the distinct warble of a didgeridoo on its opening track, the use of traditional instruments isn't so obvious here. The new record feels arguably truer to the "Afro-Latin electronic futurism" that Cruz used to describe "Limon Pelado" from that previous EP. By giving Self Oscillation a backbone of African and Andean rhythms and summoning his electronic sorcery to the surface, the EP sounds less like pastiche and more like the modern sound of Cruz's ancestral traditions as composed by a contemporary Ecuadorian artist.
Tracklist01. Cadera
02. Residual Heat
03. Self Oscillation
04. Surface Tension
05. Neo Costeno
06. Pulso Invisible