Data Breaker

The latest Diplo-approved global-beat phenomenon, kuduro,
finds one of its hottest purveyors in Portugal’s Buraka Som
Sistema (João Barbosa [Lil’ John], Rui Pité [DJ
Riot], Andro Carvalho [Conductor], and Kalaf Ângelo). Kuduro,
which derives from the African nation Angola, fuses Western styles like
grime, house, and techno with Angolan genres kilapanga and semba.
(Kuduro means “hard ass” in Portuguese, and the music inspires much
booty thrusting.)

Buraka Som Sistema’s debut album proper, Black Diamond (Fabric), flaunts hectic, galloping beats, extreme high and low
frequencies (the main sound in “Luanda Lisboa” could be a pitched-up
band saw), and declamatory vocals from several male and female
vocalists, including M.I.A. on the stomping, carnivalesque “Sound of
Kuduro” and grime MC Kano on squiggly, staccato banger “Skank &
Move.” BSS’s sensually thuggish rhythms are accentuated with cowbells,
shakers, and hand claps.

This is maximal party music ramped up to 11 and flaming with
bravado. If you want soothing sonorities of quiet reflection, steer
clear of BSS. If you want an adrenalized soundtrack to revelry/lechery,
Buraka Som Sistema can sort you out this Saturday at Nectar.

•••

This Friday, local collective Innerflight brings British
producer/DJs Meat Katie and Kid Blue to Seattle. Meat
Katie (Mark Pember) has been at the forefront of the breaks
scene for more than a decade; he’s been at it so long, he actually fit
in among England’s thriving mid-’90s big-beat scene. Lately, Meat Katie
has been merging more streamlined techno rhythms into his
bass-and-bleep-intensive tracks, while losing none of his renowned
party-igniting tendencies. Kid Blue (Londoner Rory Natkiel) also
has a foxy way with corkscrewing, chunky funk buttressed by
pornographically throbbing bass.

•••

On Saturday, Seattle’s Sweatbox crew debuts the Colour
Project, which organizer Chris Aldrich says “is a new series of
parties based on the concept of choosing a color, booking cutting-edge
talent, and exploring a different ‘shade’ of techno at each event
through said color.” Cobalt is the first hue to be spotlighted, with
Big Bully (Brooklyn’s Dawson Baca) headlining the
inaugural installment. Big Bully’s strain of minimal techno is
(relatively) slow and sludgy, and therefore carries a whiff of
freshness, thanks also to a tangy array of percussive accents. Baca
drops in his own slurred vocals, lending his tracks a weird, ominous,
sexy aura akin to Jay Haze’s productions.

Meat Katie, Kid Blue, Rhines, Kadeejah Streets, Nordic Soul
perform Fri April 24, 920 Elliott Ave W, 9 pm, $10, 21+; Buraka Som
Sistema perform Sat April 25, Nectar, 9 pm, $10, 21+; Big Bully,
Pantycontrol, Ctrl_Alt_Dlt, Leif perform Sat April 25, Electric Tea
Garden, 10 pm, $7 w/blue attire/$10 without, 21+.