Nacho Patrol - Futuristic Abeba

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  • The title is all you need to know: Futuristic Abeba incarnates some 22nd century Ethiopia, where its denizens languish under twin suns, travel on cyborg camel back and sell androids by desert caravan. Nacho Patrol functions as only one of many schizo-split pseudonyms for the man who calls himself Legowelt, and it's under the Nacho Patrol alias that things take a decidedly conceptual bent. The first Nacho Patrol release, "Maze of Violence," appears as imaginary soundtrack, complete with oddball back story, supposedly being the accompaniment to a lost early '80s Italian crime thriller deemed too politically edgy to see the light of day. Playful genre interventions should be expected, I suppose, from an artist whose primary nom de plume suggests a world of imagination governed by modular possibilities. With Futuristic Abeba the game is called science-fiction Africa, and the Lego blocks of sound and style are stacked and unstacked with remarkable skill. With tattered drum machines and analog synths churning alongside African funk rhythms and instrumentation, like relentless spiky organ plonk and snake-winding leads, the EP comes off like a man-machine offspring of the landmark Ethiopiques series. There's also a breath of the wild and woolly exoticism of the Sun City Girls and their freewheeling explorations of traditional folk musics. Opener "Africa Space Program" captures the primitive-futuristic dialectic at its catchiest, brimming with bright-eyed organs and wonky jazz riffs, a hynoptic, up-tempo flurry. Things go deeper from there: "Mind World" is driven by a four-four throb while vocoder incantations float in the mysterious night. "Twinotters" is the most atmospheric, a murky desert noir with lurking synth pads and the cries of airborne scavengers at midnight. "Futuristic Abbis Abebbav" closes the journey with a return to ham-fisted organ pound and whirling-dervish riffs.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Africaspaceprogram A2 Mind World B1 Twinotters B2 Futuristic Abbis Abeba
RA