Spanish electro-pop duo Cielo certainly have a well-entrenched background amongst the synth-pop genre, with both core members Mario and Coco first establishing themselves back in the mid-nineties as founders of Silvania, an outfit that went on to release three albums and exert a defining presence amongst the Spanish experimental electronic scene. This latest collection on Static Discos Radio Subterranea sees Cielo presenting a selection of remixes and outtakes from both their debut album Un Amor Mato El Futuro and the more recently released Paraiso Vacio, whilst also conceptually providing a homage to Latin America’s vital eighties underground radio scene (both members of Cielo originally hail from Peru). With an impressive and diverse range of remixers pressed into service here, including ISAN, Electronicat, Fax and Ascii Disko, many of the results differ considerably from their original source material, but despite this factor Cielo’s closely-held pop aesthetic manages to constantly shine through.
In the case of the distinctly more upbeat/dance-oriented first half of the tracklisting, it’s mid-eighties New Order than particularly recurs as a musical touchstone, perhaps most tangibly on “Tu Frecuencia’ (one of three previously unreleased tracks here), which merges colourful toytown synths and buzzing analogue bass with vaguely Brotherhood-esque sweeping atmospheric pads and Espanol indie vocals, and Ascii Disko’s propulsive electro-house rewiring of “Lineas Rectas.’ Fax’s dubbed-out minimal techno reworking of “Patricia’ meanwhile manages to provide an appropriate bridge to the more downbeat / leftfield-oriented productions that dominate more towards the second half of the tracklisting here, threading a phased vocal out over a gliding backdrop of brooding synth pads, pin-prick micro kick-drums and rippling harmonic tones, in what’s easily one of the biggest highlights on offer here.
Elsewhere, Tape reshapes “Tekno Film’ into a disorienting broken blur of delicate melodic pads, fragmented vocals and glittering xylophone textures that suggests ISAN’s heartfelt explorations, before Jeans Team send some chills down the spine with their eerie 8-bit electro rewiring of “Diagonal-Rational.’ Electronicat’s hypnotic seven minute long reworking of “Luz Artificial’ meanwhile comes far closer to Neu!’s metronomic motorik rhythms gone psychedelic dub, with trippy, heavily reverbed female vocal fragments cycling back and forth against a relentless backdrop of overdriven synths and clicking drum machine pulses. While I must confess to being less than familiar with Cielo’s original source material, Radio Subterranea shows an impressive brace of diverse remixers tackling the Spanish duo’s backcatalogue with pretty much consistently inspired results.
Chris Downton
