Bleep

While the sounds of the Latin diaspora have long been celebrated within their own communities, its influence has regrettably been pushed more towards the fringe in the greater realm of electronic music, until recently. Trendhopping aside, this sudden explosion of influence is inherently a net good, and has helped raise the profiles of many deserving producers and labels alike.

In that instance, 2022 was a banner year for Columbia’s TraTraTrax label. Launched in summer 2020 as an offshoot of the noted Medellin-based braindance hub Insurgentes, TraTraTrax really hit their stride last summer with Nick León and DJ Babatr’s inescapable heater ‘Xtasis’. With momentum firing, the label is finally issuing their vinyl sampler with a tidy review of some of their biggest hits thus far. ‘Xtasis’ appears twice here on the A side, both in its original form and with the trance-like crossover remix from Hessle Audio’s Pearson Sound. The B side includes two huge tracks from 2021: Nicola Cruz’s ‘Se pone caliente’ carves a path somewhere between the slamming low end of urbano and the tricky syncopation of footwork to enormous success, while Badsista’s remix of Luca Daran and Parco Palaz’s ‘Metal Parce’ retains the hand drum and Columbian feel of the track while adding a rubbery bounce and some light-touch keys that scan ever closer to techno.