Mexican producer Smurphy releases her debut album #Geminiss, shares stream

Mexican producer Smurphy releases her debut album #Geminiss, shares stream

If you follow the Latin American electronic scene, you know by now that 2014 was a bit of a lackluster year. Notwithstanding Alejandro Ghersi’s debut LP Xen as Arca, nor the pleasant-but-predictably-minor works put out by Helado Negro and Matías Aguayo, there are very few albums worth singling-out. Lucrecia Dalt has a new EP out, and by the two tracks we’ve heard so far, it sounds promising; but still, 2014 has been yet another year full of melodic, dance-beat-heavy, female-fronted synth pop acts in Latin electronic music. We’re not dissing Javiera Mena, Fakuta, Desert, or La Bien Querida, all of whom have released enjoyable albums this year, but it’s been eight years since this format started dominating the scene; its appeal must be starting to wane. But do not pass judgment on 2014 just yet. The young Mexican producer Jessica Smurphy is poised to steal the end-of-year momentum with her first album, #Geminiss, which you can stream below, perhaps the most invigorating piece of electronic music released in Latin America this year.

Best known as DJ Smurphy (she recently dropped the DJ prefix), the Mexican artist launched her career in 2012, contributing a track to the epochal underground electronic compilation Negative Youth Mexico, and has kept on releasing material steadily ever since. Her debut album comes out via N.A.A.F.I., a label/collective associated with experimental electronic artists like Fonobisa and Siete Catorce. Smurphy’s music is very much in tune with N.A.A.F.I.’s aesthetic, with uncanny atmospheres, bass-heavy tracks, and distorted beats galore. She also sticks close to Arca’s trail, though adding snappier rhythms, ominous old-school techno synths, and her own vocals, which she disembodies, ravages, and ultimately transfigures beyond the conventions of the chanted voice. There really is a lot going on in these tracks, oscillating from sense-altering loops to torrid dance rhythms and tripped-out vocals — more than enough to make this an outstanding first album, all tags and scenes aside.

So, she’s opened for Dean Blunt in Mexico City, collaborates with D/P/I, was the breakout act in the recent Mexican version of the MUTEK festival, is a Gemini (duh), owes her nickname to a goof-off track she once produced, includes vocals so high-pitched you could mistake her for a Smurf, and now lets us all stream her new album #Geminiss in time to edit her into our year-end lists.

• Smurphy: https://www.facebook.com/djsmurphy
• N.A.A.F.I.: http://naafi.mx

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