165. Ricardo Villalobos - Alcachofa (2003)

Villalobos' 2003 record is so minimalist it seems to travel to a level beyond minimalism, where the only sounds coming off your computer are a series of repetitive bleeps and bloops that last 8+ minutes and seem to never, ever change. The first time you hear this album, you'll probably hate it. Villalobos steadfastly refuses to buff up his arrangements: listen closely to the few bloops you hear in the first minute of each track, because that's all you're going to hear, and the entire 80-minute album sounds so samey and minimal and without peak or valley that you're going to go nuts at about the hour mark. But there's a lot more going on here that only becomes apparent after several listens: the beats, though of course minimal, are weird and unsettling, especially on tracks like "Dexter", where the bizarre "thwa-CRACK" noise that comes in at about the minute mark takes the whole thing in a different direction. "Waiworinao" sounds like a bass guitar riff run through about a million effects filters and shoved out the other end flattened and distorted, and while the track itself changes little from beginning to end, the original noise is so weird and captivating that you want to listen to the thing over and over to discover that which you know isn't there. The whole record is like that. It may be long, it may be boring (there's hardly any other word for it) but it certainly isn't stupid or lazy, and Villalobos has done about as well as he can within the parameters he's created for himself. At the time, there simply was no other electronic music out there like this, and the years since have only solidified its importance. More significant then actually enjoyable, though.

MY RATING: 7.5

Ricardo Villalobos - "Dexter"