Audiopile Review: Good to see that Kode9’s Hyperdub label is still out there, giving us access to loving deconstructions of the UK bass music continuum and various regional dance music styles. On the evidence of Nazar’s ‘Demilitarize’, Hyperdub is more out there than ever. This album recalls aspects of Andy Stott’s knackered house, Burial’s deconstructed R&B, and Klein’s ear-boggling collages. But it’s even weirder than all that implies. Samples are mulched into a strobing sonic doppler effect. And, while it’s all rooted in bass-heavy styles, the real action is in the mid-range, where an almost MBV-esque psychedelia lurks. An Angolan producer who grew up in Belgium, Nazar uses music to explore deeply personal intersections of politics and geography. But, while decidedly militant, ‘Demilitarize’ never seems heavy-handed or didactic. It’s just way too abstract for that. You may not learn much about Nazar’s biography from this music, but you’ll sure as hell know how he feels. You’ll also be extremely impressed by his head-wrecking psychedelic sound design and Autechre-level attention to sonic detail. An extremely impressive and affecting album.

***

Nazar’s second album, Demilitarize follows his remarkable 2020 debut Guerrilla, which was released just as Covid started to lock down the world. That first album reprocessed kuduro music from Angola with rough textures, field recordings and media clips, re-telling Nazar’s personal story of the civil war that exiled his family in Europe, while his father, a rebel General, fought a losing battle in the jungle back home.

After Guerrilla, and in the early throes of a new and important romance, Nazar was hit by Covid and with a weakened immune system, the latent tuberculosis he’d incubated while living in Angola, took over his body and left him seriously ill for a year. Reckoning with mortality and the flowering of new love are the two things that motivated this album, turning the ‘rough kuduro’ of Guerrilla inside out.

Like his debut, this is a deep sound world, but in contrast to its grit and realness, Demilitarize is genuinely dreamy. The arc of the album describes shedding the armour of trauma and surrendering to this new situation. A constant and unexpected aspect of Demilitarize is Nazar’s gentle, submerged vocal. Insistent and mantra-like, it’s like a cross between Elisabeth Frazer, Arthur Russell and Frank Ocean, and the music is fragile and opaque in response.

Nazar says – ‘With the album being introspective, I didn’t seek to capture sounds from real places to enhance it’s universe like on Guerilla. I wanted to make it almost metaphysical like creating sci-fi, with classic cyberpunk anime ‘Ghost In The Shell’ being a core inspiration.’ The rhythms of kuduro are still here, but move around his voice like fish around a swimmer. The precise sound design on Demilitarize illuminates from different angles. Chords spiral, ripple and shoot through the beats giving tracks the loosest of settings. Songs disassemble and vocals float off-centre.

Demilitarize insists you zoom in, listen closely, tune into Nazar’s rare vibration. Let it overwhelm you, while paying close attention.