Ricardo
Villalobos
Vasco
(Perlon)
Chilean techno producer Ricardo Villalobos has accrued so much
goodwill among dance-music fans he could basically coast at this point,
but one of the nice things about Vasco is how engaged it sounds.
It consists of four tracks in 70 minutes, which might seem like an
exercise in tedium, especially since each cut explores only a handful
of motifs—a glossy, squiggling keyboard riff-and-variations on
“Amazordum,” various percussion interjections all over the thick bass
drops and subdued string pads of “Minimoonstar (Full Session).” Yet
even the latter, clocking in at nearly 32 minutes, seems to move
forward even while standing still enough to admire like a statue. 