Vasco

by Andy KellmanRicardo Villalobos' two-part 12" Vasco, six sides of vinyl in total, is transferred to the CD format. The remixes from Baby Ford, San Proper, and Shackleton are disregarded and "Minimoonstar" is aired out to its "Full Session" version, 31 minutes in duration. That's 18 minutes longer than the version heard on the A-side of the part-one 12". Due in large part to an occasionally dormant background ghost choir, stirring enough on its own, "Minimoonstar" is a serene yet somber sprawl not without the innumerable intricacies expected from a gently roiling Villalobos production. Tenuous clanking, hair-trigger brushed snares, clusters of twitchy kick-drum work -- each pliant form of sensitively struck percussion unfurls, shifting in and out of focus, changing patterns so discreetly that the shifts are a only few sharp kicks and springy synth hits away from imperceptibility. The track is astonishing, even when compared to Villalobos' run of releases from earlier in the decade, unless he was expected to walk on water. "Electronic Water" is anything but fluid, one of his most agitated (if friskily so) tracks. Both "Amazordum" and "Skinfummel" make for stealth dancefloor material, with the former full of rapid kick-drum/keyboard interplay and the lighter latter steamed up by vaporous French whispers.