Siete Catorce Comes From a Scene That Never Asked Europe for Permission

Techno is still discussed as though it radiates outward from two or three cities, with everywhere else receiving the signal. Mexican electronic music has never worked that way. It has its own lineage, its own labels and its own relationship to regional rhythm, and the results frequently swing in places where European techno has trained itself not to. Siete Catorce's new album, El Valle, released through In-Correcto and Discos Nutabe, balances two instincts that normally cancel each other out: stripping tracks back, and refusing to repeat an idea. The easiest route to sounding varied is to add things. The easiest route to sounding disciplined is to repeat. Doing both at once requires knowing exactly which element is carrying a track, and removing everything that is only there out of habit. Releasing through those labels rather than routing the record through a European tastemaker is worth noticing. The music travels regardless, which says something about where the audience actually is now, and about how little the old gatekeeping arrangement has left to offer an artist with a functioning network at home. For anyone playing records, this is the useful kind of import. If your sets have started to sound like everybody else's, material built on different rhythmic assumptions is the fastest available correction. Not as exotica, and not as a gesture, but as a different set of defaults about where the weight of a bar should fall.

Labels: In-Correcto, Discos Nutabe.