P018 – DJ NIGGA FOX – 15 Barras

Vinyl 12″
Written and produced by DJ Nigga Fox;
Mastered by Tó Pinheiro da Silva, Artwork by Márcio Matos;
Released February, 2017;

VINYL/DIGITAL: Order from us

A1 – 15 Barras

PRESS RELEASE

“15 Barras” is a musical track Nigga Fox made for an art installation with Príncipe that eventually fell through on the commissionership’s end. This long form composition is a first for the Luanda born, Lisboa resident, which he architected from scratch on his blank FL canvas without any specific conceptual gage in mind.
Marfa Journal asked him last year what was his secret ‘to making it [his music] sound so good’. He simply replied: “Imagination.”

Vinyl 12″; individually hand-stamped copies available via Bandcamp only.

Produced as the soundtrack to an unrealized installation, “15 Barras” is a 15-minute track pressed as a one-sided 12-inch. That’s different to how Rogério Brandão, AK DJ Nigga Fox, usually does things. Brandão often has an eye on the dance floor, but “15 Barras” is more exploratory. Followers will be familiar with its elements—chopped vocals, tense percussion and a stripped-down sensibility—but there are also unexpected sounds, like noisy passages that swell alongside loops and droning strings.

The piece’s most interesting aspect is its movement through at least four distinct passages. The first and shortest consists of vocals and synth hits, and could be the intro of one of his club tracks. But instead of kuduro syncopation, “15 Barras” evolves into a drumless acid cut. It then eases into an anxious, rhythmic, cinematic jumble, which transforms into a playful, rickety dub with a clanking beat. “15 Barras” may not have been presented as originally envisioned, but it’s provided an outlet for Brandão to stretch out as an artist.
Resident Advisor, February 2017

Sequenced vocal clips collide to become a chant while a consistent gurgle builds below. There’s a steady sense of certainty that emerges from the acid. Voices of the crowd interject and the hustle and bustle rises like the beginning of Marvin Gaye’s Got To Give It Up only here the crowd’s interjections distort, repeat, and swell. Time and time again, natural noises turn ever-present through repetition and manipulation. An eerie tone becomes a feature, underlining the groundswell of the crowd and finally a strain of natural percussion – bongos – drill into the scene and are looped and repeated endlessly. Finally a less than dynamic descent from the crushing crowd of the climax.

The result is a near sixteen minute exemplification of what label Principe calls “100% real contemporary dance music.” 15 Barras is a controlled vision, complete in its scope and execution that is an absolute joy to experience. It’s communication is clear and its effect is actualized, perhaps sooner than the length of the track infers. Miles Davis’ On the Corner via a Windows computer, DJ Nigga Fox’s latest manages to be anxiety inducing and soothing simultaneously as it confounds and reassures the listener with ease and poise.
Shufsounds, February 2017

Originally conceived as the soundtrack to an installation but ultimately arriving on this one-sided piece of wax, 15 Barras trades in Nigga Fox’s usual dancefloor intensity and immediacy for something more slow burning and experimental in structure and duration. An elasticated 303, or 303 emulation, is the glue that holds the piece together, coming in sticky waves of jabbing, writhing rhythm, accreting diced chants and swells of clamouring crowd noise that eventually hinge around a splintered claps and trills of hollow, wooden blocks of percussion at ruggedest angles. Drop this at the right point in the dance and you’ve got at least enough time for a really leisurely slash, and maybe even roll a zoot before returning to the dance and finding everyone melted in some kind of Cronenbergian amorphorgy. Minter.
Boomkat, July 2017

——————–