Gui Boratto, Chromophobia (Kompakt)
2007-04-01
I’m not sure why, but for some reason I studiously avoided Kompakt for years. Maybe the fact that everyone was on the bus made me a little skeptical. Gui Boratto of São Paulo, Brazil, has educated me considerably.
Over the course of two years, the man has released a dozen or so twelve inches on a number of German labels. They’re eating his stuff up over in Deutschland, and it’s no wonder. Listening to Chromophobia, you get the sense that this Boratto guy has been pumping out high-rez techno for a thousand years. It’s the textures — so crystalline and beautiful that for a moment you wonder if they just might be visible, tactile shapes flowing out of your speakers. You could dance to it, yeah, but for some reason an ounce of psilocybin and a good pair of cans seems more appropriate. Brilliant, in the sense that you may need sunglasses to hear this. “The Blessing”, with its creephouse bass and scattered hits that just might be a stack of books falling in an empty warehouse, is a standout track. But there’s much to appreciate here in the way of moods and melodies. It would be a shame to dismiss something like Chromophobia as “another house album” — this is some of the finest electronic music I’ve heard in a while.
