Juan José Navarro Velarde was born in 1988 in Guadalajara, Mexico, and it is said that around the year 2000 a cheap drum machine fell into his hands and he started to create his first beats with it. In 2012, Iñigo Vontier created Mix Le Fun, a record label on which he released his first release, the Spiral EP, where he began to show the first signs of what would become his personal stamp. Cosmic house, dirty disco and psychedelic electro fill his discography, and none of his releases can leave anyone indifferent, perpetrating a career full of underground sounds.
Now back on Lumière Noire, the Parisian label of DJ and producer Chloé, what has already been a habit since 2018 (with three EPs and an album already), her new EP Despierta (“wake up” in Spanish) is an invitation to dance.
Iñigo Vontier is ultra-prolific, popular with many artists for his remixes (Metronomy and Yuksek, to name but a couple), and in the most avant-garde clubs around the world for his mixing prowess. He is also the founder of the pioneering Calypso Records label with Thomass Jackson, supported by leading DJs such as Solomun, Dixon and Maceo Plex, and has won over the best labels of the moment with multiple releases.
He plays with surf genres and fuses influences, moving from synthetic psychedelia to futuristic ambient with the same ease as he does from deviant trance to percussive house, with no qualms about mixing guitar riffs and drum machines, analogue synths and traditional instruments, adept at alternating frenetic vocals and shamanic whispers.
With four new tracks of haunted dark disco, deconstructed and melodic electro, interlocking rhythms and twisted resonating synths, hazy atmospheres and haunted vocal injections, Iñigo Vontier explores yet another facet of his talent on the Despierta EP, without ever losing sight of the toxic and diabolical groove that has made him famous. The opening track is Magic, which perfectly lives up to its title, a pure narcotic trip that bewitches with the rhythmic pattern and ends up putting you into a trance with its melody. It is followed by the title track of the EP, hypnotic from the first chord, breaking halfway through its duration to give way to Maquina, the third track of the EP. Quasi-industrial percussion, with Detroit Electro influences, cascades of almost 8 bit analogue sounds and danceable power for the late hours of the night.
Closing the EP is Limbo, a magical reverie from the first second, which is full of almost indigenous lo fi sounds. Once again Iñigo Vontier has created an original, unparalleled sound artefact, which is perhaps his best quality as an artist.
Release date on Lumière Noire, March 11th, pre order available here
