"Mediterranean climate occurs on the western coasts of continental landmasses, roughly between the latitudes of 30° and 45° north and south of the equator.
Examples include much of California and certain parts of southwestern Oregon, Western Australia, Cape Province in South Africa, the Mediterranean Basin itself and of course Chile. The country occupies a long coastal strip between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean. When it is Winter in Europe, it is hot summer in Chile.
The northern Atacama desert contains great mineral wealth, primarily copper and nitrates. The relatively small Central Valley, which includes Santiago, dominates the country in terms of population and agricultural resources. This area also is the historical center from which Chile expanded in the late 19th century, when it integrated the northern and southern regions. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands and features a string of volcanoes and lakes. The southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. The Andes Mountains are located on the eastern border.
Yes, Chile definately is a beautiful and exciting spot on earth that today is more vibrant than ever - for electronic minimalism it goes, at least. The electronic music scene in Chile has developed - and expanded - quickly in the past years and a couple of artists have taken the leap and get released on international labels. No, we're not talking about the merits of the exile-Chileans Ricardo or Luciano, what we have here are two of the most ambitious artists of that country gathering on this special cooperation release: Alta Infidelidad, a cooperation between Receptor (Jorge Cortés) and Christian Dittmann.
Receptor lives and works in Santiago de Chile, where he has founded the local Ojo de Apolo Label in 1997. They did several releases and events with that label and its members (Bios, Danieto, Spin). Nowadays Receptor represents his music outside Chile by playing live in Argentina and also in Europe. His sound recently received attention by several vinyllabels - in 2005 the label Plong! from Cologne released a 12" called "Countdown for Eliza" and the italian label Citymorb released another 12" called "Moving Head". For 2006 more Receptor vinyl releases are coming in on a diversity of labels, for example the Sushitech label from Israel (on which he will appear as "Autómata"); Mule Musiq (Japan) and the recent EP for Winsome Music, another german label. Not to forget about his releases on the RealAudio and Comatronic netlabels!
His partner in crime for this release, Christian Dittmann, is an active dj and regularly spins records across various chilean clubs. He has had a first release on Pheek's excellent Archipel label (archipel.cc) in autumn 2005 and surely will have a string of new stuff out in 2006. Compared to Receptors music, his stuff is much more an eccentric carpet of sequenced sound snippets, framed in 4/4 patterns.
For this release, Alta Infidelidad team up to compress their associative, trippy sound on and on, with continously compact melody fragments over soundeffects. At times they let soundeffects run against each other and have the sample elements communicating with each other in a virtuose way.
While the tracks of Receptor are clean and sparse they appear as almost static motions inside wooden, yet driving minimalist patterns. By times his clinic scapes might awake reminiscences to Sahkö and Raster Noton aethetics but, of course, they are much more techno than that.
On the other side we have the antagonist tracks by Christian Dittmann, which are full with minimal percussive spinneries in a rich versatile mix that make you wonder how he manages to develop a track out of the pumping seizing intro huddles. An endless stream, apparently not vehemently aligned on purpose, slowly develops frequent dreaming undertones, that absorb oneself within the strangest area, where tension won't reduce to a lesser extent, no matter if the end is a wafted pad or simply the most reduced grooves. Start and finish are hardly recognizeable and the dancefloor barely is in sight, but apparently the intoxicated drifting thereafter becomes visible.
The arrangements are fragile, volatile and less than ever appear to obey linearity as a flux of jammed ideas, shortly shifted soundexplosions and rhythmic displacements. The tracks pulsate like in an endless flush aimlessly through the rooms in the broadest sense. Worlds and intensities, at times they are textures and again, haunting. The peculiar attention roams above the tracks and gets stuck here and there, takes an immersion bath and engrosses from the popping sounds. You might think: Odd descriptions. But this is how these tracks interact - A bipolar team play, an allegory similar as the reach from north and south of the chilean country. Although it feels dry and dusty by times, the soul within is deep and emotional." (From the Thinner's release page)