Diferenciado

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On a lethal, paradigm-shifting solo breakthru, DJ Narciso epitomises the endless creative riches of Lisbon’s kuduro mutators at Príncipe with eight tracks of ruggedly inventive heft and curious emotive grip. Big big RIYL Nazar, Nídia, N Fox, P. Adrix!

The analogy between Lisbon’s mutant kuduro / batida / tarraxho scene and the ever shifting chronics of the UK’s late ‘80s thru ‘90s rave ‘nuum bears repeating in the context of ‘Diferenciado’ - yet another high watermark of screwball grooves and wigged-out romancers from the same nexus that gave us everyone from Nídia to N Fox or P. Adrix, and the likes of Nuno Beats, DJ Lima, and DJ Nulo, who make up RS Produções along with DJ Narciso. 

Striking out on their ones, Narciso here continues in a fine vein of drill-adjacent mutability found in recent Príncipe zingers to really make fresh marks on the type of tricksy tresillo syncopations that effectively also set out Lisbon like some European answer to Havana in terms of their frankly odd but brilliant sense of rhythm, as deeply rooted in West African diasporic traditions, but always bifurcating into something wild and new.  

The equilibrium of rude discipline and a nutty madness is fundamental to the heavy, wild traction of ‘Diferenciado’. Their distillation of drill and dembow in opener ‘Ziu Ziu (Reprise)’ is a big signal to the dare-to-differ badness inside, which tags in his RS bredder Farucox on the squashed and pitching ace ‘Cabelinho’, and mad-heeled lurch of ‘Underground dos Loucos’, before going sick in his very own style. 

The skewed hyperfolk of ‘Vai Estragar a Câmera’ is comparable to early Nazar for its cantankerous offbeat oddness, but as with ‘Pipipi’ it bends to its own curdled, jazz-bloozy tunings and taste for twisted textures, as in the juxtaposition of queered bubble and eerie bells to ‘5 Do Jo’, thru the speaker buckling bass of ‘Jogo’, and a spangled concrète cut-up ’30 Paus’ going like Demdike or Andy Stott’s freakiest. 

Highest grade radge tackle, no less.

" - Boomkat