“Acid Floresta”, the title of the debut album by gladKazuka, would easily promise 303 driven house with Andean flavours. The assumption is true to some extent: In the first two tracks, “Cruces y Esquinas” and “Dolores”. But the sound spectrum is wider than that, the Colombian artist showing his talents across various styles.
For example, pumped up neo disco the Crème Organization way appears in „Guaracha“, following up on his Moroder and “The Chase” influences in “Arp Stylax” from the 2019 EP. In a change of mood, with crisp electro tunes „Tatami“ and „Esta Criatura“ the artist from Medellin makes a nod to The Other People Place. After nocturnal flow of indietronica in „3 AM“, EBM synth-work and vocal snips are driving Latin acid force in the standout cut „Salsa Dancing“. Again, „Valentina“ is a sunny side acid house with blasting horns and crunchy grooves.
To underscore the album’s diversity, „La Ochenta“ emits a breeze of dubby ambient with shy acid lines, while „Kimaré“ keeps banging the box until tranquil fadeout. In “Derretilo”, gladKazuka reports back with agile grooves for sunburn hours, the track ending with acidic broken beats for urban cumbia-shake. The album concludes with a song, “Longo Longo” featuring narration in Spanish over dramatic growl of near-exhaustion.
Mature broadness of gladKazuka’s album underscores the standing of Colombia on the map of global electronics, which is not only limited to historical power centers of electronic music, such as London, Berlin, New York. Before we go, the catalogue of the Mexican imprint Emi.te is worth a visit for further explorations of the Latin acid house scene.
Buy vinyl:
Juno (UK)
Clone (NL)
Decks (DE)