WL//WH New Music RETROVISOR
Started in 2018, initially as a performance duo, Retrovisor is the Minimal Dark Wave Dance music project created by Cochabamba, Bolivia-based multidisciplinary artists and performers, Huascar Rodríguez and Paola Vargas.
The band just released last July 13, 2023, their debut album “Choledark”, produced by Martín García and recorded thanks to a fund granted by the Cultural Foundation of the Central Bank of Bolivia.
The album explores a new facet of Retrovisor, with additional use of synthesizers-sequencers (a Korg Volca bass and a Roland TB3) to complete the older modular hardware format, previously only based mainly on a Roland SPD30 Octapad, with the aim to create a minimalist, as well as dark, dance sound, inspired by the new minimal Darkwave and the new EBM with an 80s Techno and Hi-NRG spirit that came to refresh the universe of global dark electronica just over a decade ago (with artists such as Balvanera, Romance Disaster, Boy Harsher or NNHMN).
Lyric-wise, the songs delve deeply into nihilism, anticlericalism, nostalgia, pessimism, fantasy, certain paganisms, social criticism, post-anarchism, science fiction, cyberpunk, gothic romanticism, Andean futurism and the vindication of the body, trance and dance.
A bitter reflection on modern-day reality, “Guerra Fría” lists the brutal force tactics and psychological operations used by the global government to scare the public into compliance, gaining total surveillance and control.
Strobing, hypnotic, immersive dancefloor auras blend droning omens, relentless pulsating acidic buzzing bass swirls, stacked mechanical marching dance beats, industrial clangor, spatial FXs, and disorienting distorted frequencies around mysterious, aloof, spoken word warnings and distant mind-jolting tones to evoke feelings of danger, paranoia, and dread at the hands of modern dystopic oppression.
Retrovisor‘s debut album “Choledark”, is out now on Bandcamp and will soon be available on all the music platforms.
The band also hopes to be able to do a transatlantic tour at some point.
Keep up with RETROVISOR:
photo by @salaco_ojorojo
