Mexicali-based electronic producer Marco Polo Gutierrez goes by the moniker Siete Catorce, and this year the young musician returns with a new 4-track EP called Agnosia, due out via the Greek label Hypermedium. Gutierrez came of age in Oakland attending all-night quinceańeras where he was introduced to the dance sounds of cumbia. After his mother was caught using her sister’s passport while traveling to Mexico to visit a sick relative, she was deported, and the family relocated to Mexicali. It was there, as a teenager, that Gutierrez downloaded a copy of Abelton and began to experiment making electronic dance music. The artist explains:
“First came the teenage boredom, then the isolation; followed by an introduction to raves, a few lessons in desktop mixing, and a period of dancing around genres and scenes before finally finding a sound.”
Quickly embraced by Tijuana’s ruidosón scene–an electro-folk style that often mixes cumbia-like rhythms and dub-step with the dark and tragic mood of the narco-corridos, Gutierrez would go on to sign with the label NAAFI before moving to Mexico City where he released 2013’s EP2. Since that time Siete Catorce has released his 2015 EP Paisajes via Enchufada, played festivals and events in Mexico like MUTEK, Festival Nrmal, and Boiler Room, while also performing abroad in cities like Lima, Bogota, Berlin, and Stockholm.
“Susurro” is our first listen in on Agnosia, and it’s probably the EP’s most aphotic. While the upcoming release is definitely laced throughout with dark tension, it also displays moments of the producer’s wry humor combined with his kinetic beat work. From its’ opening moments, though, “Susurro” is an angst-filled track thick enough to cut with a knife, and while its’ dub-step meets cumbia rhythms are sure to eventually move feet and body, they also represent some of Agnosia‘s most abstract. Spending its first minute in a sort of suspended state of dread filled ambiance, suffused with a barely audible undercurrent of whispers–as the track’s title would suggest–when Siete Catorce finally drops the beat here it’s a dazzling array of syncopated complexity coupled with detonating bass wabble.
A1/ 1. Risa
A2/ 2. Canto
B1/ 3. Susurro
B2/ 4. Diálogo
