Taso & Siete Catorce – Grandes Exitos
By Corey Maass
“California Sunshine”, from Taso and Siete Catorce, is scary clowns at the carnival. Noisy and weird, Vincent Price’s thriller laugh is perfectly placed over clappy rhythms (autocorrected to “flappy” which I almost let slide). Then water drops, intimate hand drums, and the blips and squawks evolve. It’s a terrifying, compelling listen.
“2 for $20” starts a little more straight forward, with a hard-driving bell-based beat and a wonderfully liquid bassline. And then you’re pushed down a dark alley of 80s breakbeat filtered through scary clowns (see above). I’d love to see this go down on a dance floor.
“Gotas” feels like a UK funky track made on a calculator. Crunchy drums and big 8-bit leads dissolve into digi-dancehall in it’s truest form, before looping back around into top-tapping 4-to-the-floor and 2-step. It feels like many tunes crammed into one, but somehow they pull it off.
“Aceite”, the final track, bangs. Big but no less silly than the other tunes, you’re ground under the heel of distorted 808 kicks and grainy snares moshing out Latin rhythms while sirens sound overhead. Accessible but confusing, goofy and creative, I found myself listening to the last instant, just to see what would come next.
Posted on August 29, 2019
Label: NAAFI