Ernesto Ferreyra: El Paraíso De Las Tortugas
Cadenza Records

Over the past decade, Cordoba, Argentina-born Ernesto Ferreyra has called Mexico City, Montreal, Berlin, and Ibiza home, and the diverse music cultures associated with such locales comes through loud and clear on El Paraíso De Las Tortugas. In the album's dozen tracks, Chilean microhouse and Ibiza breeziness rub shoulders with sleek Detroit techno and ebullient Chicago house, resulting in a snappy and infectiously grooving hybrid. It's a club-centric set first and foremost from Ferreyra, who also performs alongside Guillaume Coutu-Dumont in the duo project Chic Miniature, but it's also a wide-ranging one. A track such as “Letting Go” sparkles with layers of percussive and synthetic colour and the music deepens by merging forward thrust with an oft-melancoly melodic dimension.

A delicious opener, “Mil y una Noches” sweetens its rapturous house swing with an Ibiza vibe and driving bass pulse, after which Ferreyra sprinkles a rich array of percussive elements across the urgent microhouse groove powering “Los Domingos Vuelo a Casa.” Peppered with blips and driven by claps and slinky hi-hats, the burbling club raver “Cenote Trip” stands out as one of the album's most irresistible jams, as does the earthy “Coin Sainte Cath'” with its funky booty-bass swagger. Memorable too is the body-shaking deep house vibe of “Lost” and the album's raw dancefloor bangers (“The Mystery Is Gone,” “I Won't Forget”). Switching things up, the title track mixes roller-rink organ riffing and ride cymbal-driven jazz swing, and the funereal meditation “Back Pain” provides a brief respite from the uptempo intensity. A downtrodden vibe also enters the picture when “Acequia (Nos Salvamos)” commemorates the tens of thousands of lives lost to the Argentinian dictatorship. But such brooding forays are the exceptions not the rule on this generally high-spirited (if overlong at seventy-four minutes) set.

December 2010