Desde Los Oídos de un Sapo

If the the voice is the original instrumentas avant-garde composer Joan La Barbara once put it, then perhaps frogs are the original synthesizer. Is there another creature on the planet capable of producing more otherworldly brain sounds? Just think of the recordings that the Dutch researcher album/frogs-a-selection-of-field-recordings” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://dead-mind.bandcamp.com/album/frogs-a-selection-of-field-recordings"}” href=”https://dead-mind.bandcamp.com/album/frogs-a-selection-of-field-recordings” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>Felix Hess Made in Australia and Mexico in the 1980s: Its subjects' extended range of grunts, clicks and zappings could give the fanciest modular a good run. Frogs feature prominently in the work of Uruguayan electronic musician Lechuga Zafiro, aka Pablo de Vargas: Six years after releasing a song called “Sapo Diablo” or “Devil Toad,” he delves into amphibian imagery with his debut album. Desde Los Oídos de un Sapo (From the ears of a toad). The title isn't just metaphorical: The album's mesmerizing sound design was made in part using recordings of toads — along with the sounds of birds, pigs, sea lions, water, metal, wood, rock, glass and plastic.

De Vargas' sound collection, performed throughout South and Central America, China and Portugal, yields a powerfully original palette with unusual gravity. His drums often have the wave of hollow logs. on “Tero Sex (Danza Para Piedra Volcánica y Tero),” they suggest hitting rocks, while the slapback reverb creates the claustrophobic impression of being deep in a cave. The splashing of liquid takes on rhythmic forms in “Agua de Vidrio,” recalling the water drum of the Baka people of Cameroon and Gabon—combined, perhaps, with the clatter of a smithy. But with rare exceptions, it's never clear where any given sound might come from, and de Vargas enjoys using digital processes to smear and distort the sounds of nature into unrecognizable shapes. The end result feels a bit like standing on a holodeck whose screen is falling into jagged shards.

It's not just the Lechuga Zafiro's sounds that are original. Nothing here falls neatly under the umbrella of any established subgenre. Track after track – and sometimes in moderation – he seems determined to rewrite the rules of club music. “Oreja Ácida” opens the album with stop-start triplet timbre patterns, then explodes into hyper-speed drum breaks. “Botellharpa” lays a bent harp sample, or maybe guitar, over a fast-moving 4/4 groove, using pockets of silence and distressed glissandi to wreak havoc on the rolling current. The Lechuga Zafiro's percussive patterns would be very powerful even if programmed using conventional drum sounds or simply tapped on sticks. But they're all the more fascinating for the way unfamiliar timbres combine with knotty rhythms. The movements of his beats are dictated by the physical resistance of three-dimensional objects pushing through the air. the odd microrhythms of his syncopations seem to stem directly from the contours of his samples.