Dreckig lights the path ahead on their new EP, Eclipse
From the first electronic hits on “A VOLVER,” the opening track on Dreckig’s new EP Eclipse, something begins to happen. Your toe taps. Your head begins to bob. It’s a nearly reflexive response to the rhythm of a future past, of cumbia’s signature guira pattern transposed onto a vintage Roland drum machine, which plays it back in the saturated hits of early German techno. Its a beat which picks you up and carries you back down a path you’ve never walked before.
“A VOLVER” means ‘to return,’ or when used reflexively ‘to become,’ and within this title is a key to understanding both the EP, and Dreckig’s project as a whole. The group, consisting of husband & wife duo Papi Fimbres and Shana Lindebeck, hail from Mexico and Germany, respectively, and since meeting here in Portland, they’ve released three albums whose focus has been exploring the intersections of one another’s musical heritages. Eclipse is their first EP, a tight 4-track journey which moves us with them further down that path.
The crossover between cumbia and German electronic music may seem incongruous at first, but Dreckig’s discography demonstrates that both spring from similar soil: the primacy of their rhythms, their emergence through whatever instruments are readily available, and their status as a dance music by-and-for the people. Dreckig takes these DIY communitarian roots to heart, both formally and spiritually, using a variety of vintage synths and drum machines as a foundation over which they layer their vocals, often blended together, repeated as aphorisms which convey their meaning as much through rhythm as language.
“TESORO DEL MUNDO” moves further into the realm of tecnocumbia, with it’s bright synth stabs and layered tom hits, while “DIE NACHT” embraces the German influence, swelling into a booming celebration of night. These two middle songs taken together function as a pair, the brightness of the Tesoro (treasure) and the darkness of the Nacht (night), which together form the titular Eclipse: dark over light, light bleeding around the edge of the dark. Still, the distinction between the two is superficial. Each cannot exist without the other, each contains some of the other, and it’s this swirling and indivisible totality that Dreckig stretches their arm capture.
“JUNTOS UNIDOS” does exactly that, closing the project with the chant: “Jun-ta-nos unidos!” which functions both as a statement and as a directive. We are here together already, inexorably and inseparably so, but to really get together, to fully embrace that togetherness, through light and dark, is and always has been our challenge. For their part, Dreckig is here to meet that challenge, torches lit, leading us fellow travelers down a path which leads out beyond an unseen horizon.
Support the artists directly by purchasing the project here.
Album art by Dylan Mcconell
