$eñor $in $exo – Alogia EP [Lowers]
In Ciudad Juárez, in northern Mexico, there is a label that continues to centralize and give a voice to the most underground musical aspects of local electronic music: Lowers. Active since 2012, Lowers has been and still is a platform for many producers in this geographical area (the Mexico-US border), now extended to other parts of the country. It was in 2012 that a group of producers decided to launch Lowers, failing to spread their music through already existing labels. This unfortunate coincidence gave birth to one of the most relevant, spontaneous and innovative labels of his time.
Around 2010, the times were dark in Juarez. The war against narcotraffic, led by then-president Felipe Calderon since 2008, plunged the region (and others) into a climate of perpetual tension and daily violence. While some of the producers, who found Lowers later, made their debut in raves or house parties, the violence soon cloisters them at home where they met to make music and drink caguamas (1.25L beers, which also became a kind of logo for the label). It is in this context that Lowers was born.
The music published by the label has managed to be timeless, while evoking tirelessly the atmosphere in which it could be thought, attracting from the beginning the attention of the club label of the capital city: NAAFI. Slowed dubstep, weird jungle, glitch, dark collages, abstract grime, ghostly hip-hop, post-apocalyptic atmospheres … the Lowers catalog is close to club music, but never really embrace it. What emerges rather is a deeply introspective work. The beats do not addressed to a filled dancefloor, but rather a room where five friends would finish their caguamas. Nevertheless, the Lowers catalog is surprisingly highly coherent, its curation is impeccable, and it is not the 13th release produced by $eñor $in $exo, listenable below, that will make us say otherwise.
Lowers’ caguama, source Instagram
“Alogia”, $eñor $in $exo’s EP on Lowers
A month after the release of the third volume of their annual cult compilation, High & Low, Lowers releases today “Alogia”, the new EP of $eñor $in $exo.
$eñor $in $exo is a solo project of Moisés E. López Castillo initiated in 2016, also known for being a member of the avant-garde electronic music group: Los Macuanos.
“Alogia” consists of four tracks with enigmatic names: Answer One, Answer Two, Answer Three and Four. Exploring different musical genres, the tracks nevertheless share similar sounds. Pitched and used in various ways, they manage to be used through the entire EP as a guideline. As in his group Los Macuanos, the cinematic dimension of $eñor $in $exo is undeniable.
$eñor $in $exo:
When I produce I like to invent narratives that guide the composition process. Soundtracks for characters in particular situations. This has a purpose.
In the case of Alogia, the main theme is memory. There are four pieces that try to represent the fragmented psyche of an individual that has erased the words from their stormy memories and only the raw sensory experience of what happened is left.
Vague stories like this help me form the structure that will give style to the piece.
Cuando produzco me gusta inventar narrativas que guíen el proceso de composición. Soundtracks para personajes en situaciones particulares. Esto tiene una finalidad.
En el caso de Alogia el tema principal es la memoria. Son cuatro piezas que intentan representar el psique fragmentado de un individuo que ha borrado las palabras de sus recuerdos tormentosos y solo queda la experiencia sensorial cruda de lo acontecido.
Historias vagas como esta me ayudan a formar la estructura que le dará estilo a la pieza.
I try that the interpretation is manifested in the composition and so when you remove the original idea a similar story is created but in the language of music. This is an aspect that shares my work with Los Macuanos. For example, a song like El Fantasma / La Maquila, use the same technique.
The story was of a Tijuanense maquiladora worker who did not know he had good time going to work dead. Eventually that way of writing songs led us to explore issues of Mexican national politics and in parallel almost always write a narrative or a story that we only had among us.
Procuro que la interpretación se manifieste en la composición y así cuando retiras la idea original se crea otra historia muy similar pero en el lenguaje de la música. Este es un aspecto que comparte mi trabajo con Los Macuanos. Por ejemplo, en canciones como El Fantasma / La Maquila utilice la misma técnica.
Ahí la historia era de un obrero de maquiladora Tijuanense que no sabía que llevaba buen tiempo yendo a trabajar muerto. Eventualmente esa manera de escribir rolas nos llevó a explorar temas de política mexicana nacional y paralelamente casi siempre escribir una narrativa o un cuento que solo nos contábamos entre nosotros.
Now with $eñor $in $exo I return to that way of composing to deal with topics of special interest. Specifically the conversion of experience to memory and from there to music. And as in the process the information is transmuted again and again until it becomes experience again. This idea is the idea that I intend to transmit with Alogia.
Ahora con $eñor $in $exo retomo esa manera de componer para lidiar con temas de interés especial. Específicamente la conversión de la experiencia a la memoria y de ahí a la música. Y como en el proceso la información se trasmuta una y otra vez hasta volver a ser experiencia. Esta idea es la idea que pretendo transmitir con Alogia.
$eñor $in $exo
Listen first: Mock The Zuma remixes $eñor $in $exo
In addition to the four tracks mentioned above, the EP is supplemented by four remixes. Each Answer is respectively remixed by Durant, Mock The Zuma, Espectro Caudillo (also founder of Los Macuanos with $eñor $in $exo), and Fonobisa.
In exclusive listening, Lowers entrusted us with the remix of Mock The Zuma. The young co-founder of Lowers, who is called Kevin Santana in everyday life, already has a catalog of releases more than serious to his credit, published by labels such as Fullfridge Music, NAAFI or recently by the Czech label Red for Colourblind.
On his re-reading of Answer Two, Mock The Zuma totally takes the original title. Answer Two was dark but broken and fast. Kevin’s remix will be darker, slower, heavier and more pitched. Mock The Zuma’s remix is almost a chopped & screwed version of the original title, and it’s easy to imagine the shadow of DJ Screw’s ghost playing across the walls and across the border between Texas and northern Mexico.
“Alogia” EP from $eñor $in $exo will be available today on the Lowers Bandcamp.
Some sources of this article come from the excellent 7 Years of Lowers, the Electronic Collective That Gave a Voice to Border Kids From Juárez published by the New York media Remezcla.
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$eñor $in $exo SoundCloud
Mock The Zuma SoundCloud Bandcamp Twitter Instagram
