MUSIC

“Lone is about loneliness and hidden places. It’s been my shelter for the last three years. It’s a work full of internalized questions. Am I still who I was before? Do I have the same energy and ambitions? Is this all still really me? A sense of nostalgia permeates through all its tracks, though each one has a different root. I’ve always felt connected to both tribal and dark atmospheres, and cinematic moods as well. The beautiful dualism with CTM’s cello, and the romantic guitar featured by Carlo Teo Pedretti speak to this; they communicate very intimate feelings. In Lone, you’ll be shackled between chorals and techno kicks. The album should carry you through my many different approaches.” – Tadleeh

One of the first artists from outside of Africa to sign to Hakuna Kulala, WULFFLUW XCIV brings his borderless productions to the label's ongoing Whitelabel series following a slew of dancefloor agitations from T5UMT5UMU, Menzi & Scratchclart, and others. "Toxica EP" builds on the mutant fusion of 2020's acclaimed "Ngoma Injection", stripping back the woozy psychedelia and chromium ambience and replacing it with pure soundsystem pressure. 'Take a Ride' bends acid techno machinery around rubbery East African rhythms, anchoring block party hedonism with a 4/4 bump that wouldn't be out of place in Kreuzberg and vocal shakes straight from São Paulo. But this isn't a mindless mashup of aesthetics, its a conversation with the world's fringe agitators, using stylistic and rhythmic strokes to highlight commonality, not exclusivity.Hakuna Kulala's own Chrisman appears on 'Tetemeka', and the two producers adapt the syrupy tarraxinha inversions the Congolese engineer perfected on last year's "Makila" full-length. Low, resonant gqom atmospheres underpin the entire track, but WULFFLUW XCIV's squeaky toy synths prevent it from slipping into darkness. Elsewhere 'Kluck' distorts the timeline completely, wedging flute-led Latin American tribal sounds into a riddim vs. trap superstructure, and 'Exp' sublimes speed dembow into delirious trance and minimal techno vapors. The boundaries between dance subgenres are slowly dissolving, and WULFFLUW XCIV's digital-era intermixture sounds like the cyberpunk carnival we're all desperately in need of.

"Pulso is about sexual desire, my desire. Me as the subject, not only the object of it. I sing my pleasure and daydreams, because it's my body and my imagination, so I know what I like to feel." Sonically inspired by reggaeton, a genre that is personally nostalgic and reminiscent of times spent at parties listening to the imported genre as a teenager in her home country, Spain. Clara! works with producers who don’t usually dabble in the genre - SKY H1, Pearson Sound and Low Jack - in order to mix their own, unique universes with it.