P028 – DJ NIGGA FOX – Cartas Na Manga

Vinyl 2×12″ / Digital
Written and produced by DJ Nigga Fox;
Mastered by Tó Pinheiro da Silva, Artwork by Márcio Matos;
Released November, 2019;

VINYL/DIGITAL: Order from us

A1 – Quebas
A2 – Sub Zero
A3 – Nhama

B1 – Faz A Minha
B2 – Talanzele

C1 – Água Morna
C2 – Vício

D1 – Pão De Cada Dia
D2 – 5 Violinos

PRESS RELEASE

While touring extensively for the past few years, Nigga Fox never neglected reaching inside his mind for unheard of signature tunes. Four years since his last EP on Príncipe, a year or so after “Crânio” on Warp Records, pressure could be mounting, but he kept his chill.

What does in fact amount to an album can be seen as the proverbial show of maturity, if you will, but to us it’s definite proof of vitality and personality in this game. As before, way beyond notions of African music, something definitely coming from the street but taking form in a collective headspace. More than dance music (which it obviously is), “Cartas Na Manga” offers introspective joy in our effort to connect many loose dots inside the groove of each track..

There’s more piano in there, but what does that mean? Just as much as the expressive dancefloor anthem “Talanzele” or the offbeat bassline in “Pão de Cada Dia”. Nigga Fox is following a strong intuition and still maintaining his flow within the grid: while some moves are clearly venturing into the future, this is a celebration of present times. We hear him say “Nigga Fox na maior” in the closing track and THAT keeps us smiling long after the sound expires.

And Márcio Matos came up with some interactive artwork. Be your own algorithm and change the cover any time and how you feel it :) :(

Vinyl 2×12″; individually hand-stickered, available for the world.

O quinto lançamento de DJ Nigga Fox, o quarto na Príncipe, mostra-o pela primeira vez em território de sensualidade sem terror, confusão e suor. A irregularidade e a insatisfação pela norma continuam lá, mas há em “Cartas na Manga” uma sofisticação em pensar como a música toca o ouvinte e o seduz. Mais lento e pensado, o que falta em devaneio e correria, está concentrado numa aprendizagem contínua que se tem cristalizado na forma como DJ Nigga Fox racionaliza a música de dança. Não a que por aí anda. A sua. Isso existia no anterior 12” na Warp, “Crânio”, um passo intermédio quer serviu para assimilar as ideias que aqui são consolidadas. “Cartas na Manga” é, se quisermos, o disco maduro. Já não é um 12” onde os beats eram tão frenéticos e descontentes que nos agarravam à pancada. É um álbum, uma reunião de ideias de quem viu muita pista (de cima e de baixo) e de quem percorreu meio-mundo para perceber que seis anos depois de “O Meu Estilo”, o estilo é agora um estilo. Sem “Cartas na Manga”. Só trunfos. Essencial como o ar.
Flur, November 2019

DJ Nigga Fox’s most substantial release to date sets a new benchmark for Lisbon’s revered underground ghetto dance scene, pulling traces of jazz, acid house and cinematic sound design into his deeply rugged and exceptional sound with effortless style…🔥🔥🔥

Highlighted as one to watch in Lisbon’s virulent club scenius since appearing on the ‘Bazzerk’ compilation which introduced many ravers to Kuduro in 2011, DJ Nigga Fox’s productions have become acclaimed for a mix of abstract weirdness and proper dancefloor impact that’s hit ‘floors hard across the world. Following 2018’s ‘Crânio’ 12” for Warp and remix of How To Dress Well, he now returns to the Príncipe powerhouse, home of his first trio of 12”s, with a definitive statement that arguably ranks among this year’s strongest rhythm-driven LP’s.

In a way that mirrors UK dance music’s transition in the ‘90s from hardcore jungle to garage and D&B, or in the ‘00s from grime and dubstep to more “sophisticated” styles of deep house, broken beats and UK Funky, Nigga Fox’s album-length EP appears more layered, plusher and, ultimately “musical” when compared to his earlier work. Using sparing but knowing dabs of noirish jazz keys, live-sounding double bass and expressively off-kilter synth tones, he binds rippling, colourful flesh to his flexing, bare bones drums in a way that boldly blazes a trail for his local scene without ever losing sight of what makes it so thrilling in the first place.

This inch-tight refinement of Nigga Fox’s already distinctive style is characterised by the twisting, unpredictable arrangement of ’Sub Zero’, where stealthy waves of swingeing drums and vintage horror movie tropes are ramped with feral electro scuzz to killer effect, or equally in the freaky tension between lissom jazz chords, jaws-harp buzz and wild acid lines on ‘Faz A Minha’, and the way he meshes roiling drums with complex, asymmetric electronics on ‘Vicio’, or simply forges his own, outstanding form of slow, psychedelic dance-pop replete with his own, Quasimodo-Styled vocal in the shocking closer ‘5 Violinos.’

By any measure ‘Cartas Na Manga’ is a singular release that stands miles out from the crowd. Its only comparisons really lie within Lisbon’s club scene, with the likes of DJ Firmeza, Marfox or Nervoso. As such it’s best taken as symptomatic of their collective scenius, and is keenly ready to be mixed with music from all corners of the Black Atlantic.
Boomkat, November 2019

Nigga Fox doesn’t release prolifically. We’re lucky if we get a release a year. But when he does drop something, it’s always worth paying attention. Especially when it comes in the form of a debut album. His most comprehensive body of work to date, here the Warp-affiliate really digs deep into ingredients, joins more dots than ever and pulls out everything he has hidden up his sleeve. Take the Afrofunk voodoo brew of “Talanzece” or the strange woozy off-beat house jitters of “Subzero” or the staccato jilts and swing of “Pao De Cada Dia” for just a handful of examples of creativity and innovation on show here. One of the most unique and beguiling albums we’ve heard all year.
Juno, November 2019

Brandão has restlessly continued innovating—just see his 15-minute single “15 Barras,” an outlier in a scene full of two- and three-minute songs. But with the nine-track Cartas Na Manga, he returns to the label for the first time in two years to drop his most exploratory set to date. It retains the woozy instability of his prior work while folding in startling new timbres. “Sub Zero” shows off Brandão’s skill set from the jump, juggling a number of incongruent bleeps, claps, gurgles, and alien tones for its first three minutes and allowing them to build. Then, in an instant, he flips it all on its head like a Jello mold, whole and wholly coherent.

Nigga Fox’s gymnastic knack for inverting everything and still nailing the landing carries across the set. In that way Cartas Na Manga emulates its modular cover art, by in-house designer Márcio Matos, whose sticker shapes can be assembled in any number of ways. Throughout the album, new shards of sound jump out: horn fanfare, piano, electronically warped exhalations, even flute and synthesized woodwinds. The pummeling that opens “Nhama” soon careens into plonky piano, marimba, and flickering vocals, fracturing into numerous small elements yet still holding together as a track. “Faz a Minha” flashes a number of telltale sounds from different subgenres of dance—acid gurgle, house low end, itchy experimental electronics—then spins it like a carousel so that it all blurs into giddy release.

“Talanzele” is the most straightforward dancefloor track, but even then Nigga Fox makes it feel permeable, letting a flute amble in and then an array of kitchen-sink percussion march across it. “Água Morna” takes the trademark knocking Príncipe beats and injects the kind of minor-key apprehensiveness that Lalo Schifrin or Quincy Jones would add to a soundtrack to heighten tension.

If you ever wondered what Nigga Fox would sound like if he turned pensive and absurd, there’s closer “5 Violinos.” Thrummed metal gives the track its dreamy shuffle, while his voice is screwed up and down, cartoonish one moment, a drugged warble the next. Whether you make out the boast “Nigga Fox na maior” as “the illest” or “the chillest,” depending on your translation of Portuguese street slang, Brandão still sounds far out there, inviting the rest of us into his headspace.
Pitchfork, November 2019

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