ZEBRA - Dimension EP

Chilean duo Zebra, composed of DJ/producer Roman (MKRNI, Roman & Castro) and multi-instrumentalist Miguel Irarrazaval (Lainus, Treboles) present an EP with four dream pop pearls. This newest release comes after the excellent “Summerlove” (2013) and shows a smoother ambiance, a more relaxing atmosphere with less electric ups and downs but with an enveloping brilliant drone instead. Dimension is valid for both spanish and english, the lyrics mix the two languages so as the music seems to be the stylistic blend of latin and non-latin sources. Listening to Zebra, we hear echoes of chill wave stars like Washed Out, Com Truise and Toro & Moi but with a subtle funky touch that makes the difference and relates them to contemporary Iberoamerican acts such as Clubz and Extraperlo. Dimension EP is a brief collection of sunsetting rhythms where vocals are delivered like wind blowing over a synth pop basis decorated with shiny sound effects, so as we would imagine our beach cocktails to be like. Free download via the Soundcloud.

MP3: Lainus - "Baile Contemporáneo"

Industrial pop is acquiring the amorphous dynamics that made techno music so fascinatingly fruitful two decades ago. The assembly of daydream aesthetics and the borrowing of afrofuturism in today’s pop frequencies (“chillwave”) is providing us with some of the most avant-garde music we’ve seen in decades. Chilean newcomer Lainus belongs to this line of dreamwavers making greatly challenging and emulsified songs. Highly influenced by Germany’s techno pioneers, Kraftwerk, and the more modern revolutionary kids of Animal Collective, the one-man crusade by Lainus’ synth-maximalist mastermind, Alfredo Ibarra, is quite promising.



Ibarra, who in the past released a microhouse-experimental album with Pueblo Nuevo, sounds like most of his dreamwave contemporaries (Memory Tapes, Pictreplane, Millionyoung, etc.), but far more intimidating. Lyrically, Lainus seems to share the deep concerns toward music form found in many of his compatriots, like Gepe and Fakuta. In the most psychedelic fashion, first promotional cut “Baile Contemporáneo” is so intriguingly abrupt that listening to it requires a certain level of psychedelic coolness. The song’s first fragmented sequence is alarming to say the least (it’s literally a rush of blood to the head). Things only get more confounding in its middle section, but if you stick around long enough, all of your invested attentiveness will pay off with the emergence of glo-fi riffs on the horizon.

♫♫♫ "Baile Contemporáneo"