Debilos: Turn My Clock
Molts Records

After seeing the premiere Debilos outing, the Dimarts i Dijous EP, selected by a number of publications as the top Spanish hip-hop album in 2008, Josh Fontan (Beatspoke) and Joan Pedrosa (El Chavo) decided to establish Molts Records as an outlet for the work of local and international artists, as well as their own productions. The Barcelona natives meld elements of hip-hop and Spanish folk into a hybrid that feels fresh and natural, and currently find themselves collaborating with kindred spirits like CYNE and Non Genetic.

The Debilos original, “Turn My Clock,” is sweet indeed, a swinging jazz-&-hip-hop banger powered by a huge drum wallop, warmed by strings and electric piano, and elevated by the soulful vocalizing of Barcelona-based Norwegian singer Anqui. Think broken beats and old “bossa-nova” samples irradiated with a breezy vibe, and all of it served up in three jam-packed minutes. Son Of Kick's “Rekix” punches up the original with a heavy smattering of electro-fied, dubstep-burning bass fury and a lethal dose of shredding that finds both the track itself and Anqui's vocal ripped apart and re-assembled. A tad less frenetic is BFlecha's makeover, in which the Spanish-born producer goes overboard in the vocal manipulation department but atones for it with a hard-grooving rhythm treatment that's too funky to deny (she also earns points for the delicious synth-bass she adds to the tune). Barcelona-based Check One drenches Anqui's vocal in echo and strings before shifting into heavy wobble mode. Though his remix is a little less, shall we say, flamboyant than the other two, Check One makes no wrong moves and that, in turn, makes his the most all-around satisfying of the three. Even so, the Debilos original stands out most of all, and, as such, one comes away wishing that more than a single track by the duo had been included.

March 2011