With his third EP, THROUGH, Mexican musician Pablo Pina, best known as Sainte Vie, plunges deeper into music’s power to evoke emotions and make memories come to life.

Both tracks that make up the EP are high-energy, innovative soundscapes. In Heart, a syncopated kick groove and filtered drum roll, accompanied by unusual synth arpeggios create an ethereal atmosphere that is completed by a ghostly vocal recitation of a mystical poem. The unorthodox chord progression in Phantom establishes a mysterious, eerie mood until a synth with an LFO emulating an emotional vocal propels the track into catharsis at the break of the song.

Sainte Vie’s masterful blending of melancholia and euphoria simultaneously manifests the excitement of a live set and the deep thoughtfulness of meditation.

Kapoor and Hvitling’s first album, The Odyssey, is monumental. It boasts eight tracks that are generous in terms of length and sophistication. Each has a distinctive feel and predominant mood, balancing intricate sonic arrangements with dynamic and rhythmically pleasant beats.

Yet certain ethereal sound textures and melodies make the tracks echo each other, creating a sense of journeying through uncharted waters. Masterfully produced female vocal synths become spectral presences in several tracks, most notably in Vox Diaboli and Vox Angeli.

In the former, seductive whispers hiss a rhymed incantation, creating a delightfully spooky atmosphere; while the latter lures the listener into sacred ecstasy with a combination of vibrant synths pristinely arranged with a string orchestra and LFO female vocals.

Akumandra’s fourth official vinyl release stays true to its multicultural essence, adding this young Polish and Swedish producer duo to their vinyl catalog.

The latest release by the Mexican avant-garde label Akumandra is founder Sainte Vie’s three track auditive voyage: From Desolate Places and Forgotten Times. Going beyond previous experimentation with sound assemblage and sampling from non-western musical traditions, Sainte Vie crafts his signature mesmerizing soundscapes by combining dreamlike synth textures, monumental drops and vibrant melodies that feel deeply melancholic. Insistent arpeggios and expansive build ups bind the tracks together in an ebb and flow of dynamic energy.

High Seas
Overlaid synth patterns, like waves, propel us into a mixed-percussion drop that settles on a harmonic calm before another surge of synth arpeggios drive us farther along into the thrilling sensation of voyage.

Whale
Disembodied vocals, like cetaceans communicating, echo each other, creating a ghostly undercurrent to the vigorous percussion and futuristic synth arpeggios.

Darko
Backed by an eerie melody and punctuated by a lead-heavy bass drum, a deep, guttural voice plunges us into the dark flow of time.

Spectral in theme and profoundly engaged with the sensorial quality of music, Sainte Vie’s EP transports the listener to a place that feels distant like uncharted waters, yet familiar like a memory.

Kleintierschaukel’s first release on Akumandra presents an unstable proximity to the archaic, with equatorial acoustics that modulate between organic and synthetic states. Drum’N’Feels is about the re-enchantment of culturally heavy sampling – an acknowledgment to an indigenous sound that warps the perception of home and away.

The first track, Long Time Ago, utilizes sporadic square waves as the engine and embellishes with a series of sensory sound cyclones.

Crazy Dayz is an auditory story telling of an event horizon that is never fully approached. Arbitrary vocals and low swells allude to the dynamic haze of nighttime euphoria.

The syncopated guitar strum provides an omnipresent reality to Kidz of Tibet – a deconstruction of a desolate, desert melody to form a vacant audio-synthesis.

Buffi and the Dolphins, the final track of the EP, is a full-bodied submersion into subterranean liquid percussion. The splurge on cavernous sampling builds the frequency layers needed for this multi-textural sound.

As a brief epilogue, Akumandra promotes the exceptional artists riding the sub current of multicultural electronic music and, after 3 years of sharing its music for free, it’s about to release on vinyl for the first time.

As the twilight scene of music is in constant evolution, Akumandra is ever present with a distinct vibrant sound, ready to infuse new space.

Sainte Vie’s music is a prime summary of what it means to hear in a post-genre universe. As trends are quickly rendered obsolete, the accumulation of culture debris is becoming more significant in relation to the producer – the ability to create a nostalgic blur through a composition of artifacts and interpretations. Paying homage to this, Estación Inmortal (Sainte Vie’s first EP) produces the afterglow associated with an auditory epiphany. The combination of mellow interludes, earthy chord progressions and acoustic-synthetic equilibrium have the capacity to conquer both communal space and solitude.

Huracán, the first track of the EP, introduces aeolian riffs and a tribalistic repertoire to an abstract house backbone, whilst the vocals transform the production into a ritualistic summoning.

Albatross, explores saturated landscapes through a blend of miscellaneous percussion and raptured harps – the lower piano keys providing the infectious melody line. María, a collaboration with Pascale Ussel and the final track of the EP, stars a seductive vocal intercepted by retrograde lows and a melodic bass line reminiscent of the post-prog 90s bass.