Bleep

Nazar first turned heads when, on his 2018 Hyperdub debut Enclave, he introduced his ‘rough kuduro’ sound to the world. He goes even deeper on Guerilla, his full-length debut and a record where he affirms his status as an artist of radical vitality.

Though now based in Manchester, Nazar’s music is greatly informed by the civil war in his homeland of Angola. Guerilla processes the effect that the conflict had both on the nation at large and Nazar’s family - conversations Nazar had with his father, a rebel general in the war, were at the core of the album’s development.

On tracks like ‘UN Sanctions’ Nazar curdles both the kuduro of early Príncipe and hybridised club style served up by Fade To Mind stalwart Rizzla. In the context of Guerilla, using sounds like gunshots and the loading of bullets as percussive elements take on heavier, darker meaning. Many tracks are couched and paranoid, their beats barred from the centre of dancefloor by consistent rupture. Even when cuts are allowed to run relatively freely - ‘Fim-92 Stinger’, for instance - there is a strangely warped feeling that lurks in the background, one that eventually overpowers the rhythms.

Voices appear all over Guerilla, but rather than club-caller incantations their speech is often muffled and half-heard, disorientating the beats rather than anchoring them. When people are allowed to speak freely, as on ‘Mother’ and ‘End Of Guerilla’, their words are freighted by the mournful synths which Nazar places next to them.

Dealing with both personal and collective trauma by darkening the sound of kuduro and adjacent styles, Nazar’s debut LP Guerilla is a uniquely powerful listen.