Aylu - Profondo Rosa

Argentinian producer, Aylu (aka Ailin Grad), debuts for the ever-reliable Mana imprint with this ten track set of quixotic and hyper-detailed electronica. This is by no means Grad's first release, having featured for a number of notable underground labels, though most notably her own, Abyss, an outlet we're told is designed to 'connect Latin Juke with the world'. It's a telling detail, i think, because there's a real warmth to Grad's compositions - that Latin heat, you might suppose - which marks them as uniquely separate from their direct influences. Mana cite SND, and you can also hear rhythmical elements of Autechre, early Alvo Noto, Rastar Noton et al, though tonally it's in a different space, tech-y but human, too, perhaps in part due to the sampling of 'real world' (whatever that is anymore) sound into hyperreal arrangements. Best of all, Grad is rarely predictable, steering down unexpected sonic paths where string samples, bird song and glass synth codes are hypnotically aligned. If that sounds maximalist in approach, the tracks themselves are by no means busied or bloated even when the ideas are rich and densely layered. In that sense, it reminds me most of Henry Kawahara's marriage of both the organic and synthetic, though not so much fourth world as existing in its own eccentric space.