P029 – PML BEATZ – Pedra de 800 Kg

Vinyl 12″ / Digital
Written and produced by PML Beatz;
Mastered by Tó Pinheiro da Silva, Artwork by Márcio Matos;
Released January, 2020;

VINYL/DIGITAL: Order from us

A1 – No Cubau
B1 – Manganza
B2 – Pedra de 800 Kg

PRESS RELEASE

Of Cape Verdean and Angolan descent, brothers Lisandro (20) and Ivan (22) are no longer producing physically as a team but currently exchanging ideas from their respective homes in Portugal and Luxembourg, this being one of the countries where Portuguese have traditionally sought a better life.

“Pedra de 800Kgs” is a heavier adaptation of a motivational expression their father used when the kids were having trouble with something: “That’s easier than lifting a 500 kg rock”. You might sense the heaviness on the deliberately distorted bass tones and everlasting drone on “Manganza”. This is about laying out a heavy heavy sound, sure, plus the title track delivers a magnificent, warped, kuduro punch, updating the continuum with an abstract, fast, elastic, dancefloor-designed tune.

Back to “Manganza”, dancers perhaps congregate around the whistles that punctuate the track, but these are more closely connected to the rhythm in the tense 6-minute broken techno of “No Cubau”, a journey through layers of groove that, though tense, gently carry the listener from take off to landing with zero alienation.

Theirs was a long process initiated in 2010 when they were barely entering the Teen Age, still too young to persevere with the software. Fast forward to 2017 and, because the drive was still present, they approached childhood buddy and neighbour DJ Bebedera for serious lessons. Even more natural because PML could actually hear him through the walls blasting fresh sounds every weekend. Go pro.

Vinyl 12″; individually hand-painted, 300 copies available for the world.

Drawing on a shared Cape Verdean and Angolan heritage, the duo started producing in their early teens back in 2010, but got distracted, as teenagers are prone to do, before returning to the software in 2017 with a little help from their former neighbour and mentor, DJ BeBeDeRa – whose grinding tarraxhos have been issued on 7” by Promesses – to finally produce this killer trio of club workouts.

Hypnotic and hard in a signature Príncipe style that firmly resonates with SA Gqom, strains of syncopated UK Bass and mutations seeping out of all corners of the internet, the EP kicks off with a mesmerising mix of New Beat-esque choral drones with synthetic Berimbau-like riffs and flinty rhythm in No Cubau’, before ‘Manganza’ doubles down the darkness with murderous bass drones and distorted drops recalling Durban taxi techno vibes, and ‘Pedra de 800 Kg’ – so titled after their father’s motivational expression “That’s easier to lift than a 500 Kg rock” – recklessly pushes the dance to a steely, uptempo frenzy.
Boomkat, January 2020

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