- The Brooklyn producer puts his mischievous stamp on baile funk's incendiary, innuendo-fuelled legacy.
- A genre-defying label like TraTraTrax is the perfect home for Doctor Jeep's unhinged techno. After being pigeonholed as a half-time producer following 2016's Dissociate EP, André Lira told DJ Mag that he wanted to break out and go back "to just doing everything." Listening to his 2021 compilation, 10 Years of Doctor Jeep, you get a glimpse of what "everything" means: grubby breakbeats peppered with sharp stabs, horror-show grime and melodic UK funky shot through laser beams. Lira strengthens his versatile discography on his latest EP, Mecha, this time sampling baile funk MCs over ecstatic, percussive club music that's guaranteed to pop off on any dance floor.
Born in New Jersey to Brazilian parents, Lira has previously spoken about the influence of the call-and-response tradition in Brazilian carnival music has on his work. This is most transparent on the speed dembow of "Pika 2," where he makes a rhythmic tongue twister out of the Portuguese words for "mouth" (boca) and "cock" (pica). Then, as coiled tension builds over a snaking synth line, the long-anticipated climax: a heady, syncopated beat ushered in by the distinctively animated cry of "Pika!" Lira's masterful sampling also doubles down on the lustful energy, laying his own mischievous stamp on baile funk's legacy of innuendo-fuelled lyrics.
But Mecha is at its most exhilarating when Lira puts his vast, cross-cultural dance music knowledge to use. The "ai ai ai ai's!" on the title track punctuates a tantalising funk beat, before the song's zappy, high-pitched saw synths kick it into overdrive. "Macumba" sounds like Lira uploading the consciousness of a sparky funk MC onto a robot. As he jolts from racing baile to half-time dubstep, he transfigures vocoder samples into seductive drivel.
A star cast of remixers—Wata Igarashi, Peder Mannerfelt and Ploy—take Mecha's pleasure-seeking approach into more experimental reaches. Igarashi's "Macumba" abandons the voice entirely, forcing the baile beat and syrupy dubstep strides to melt into one another. Mannerfelt’s "Mecha" rework is similarly beat-focused: across its head-banging techno, bursts of the original's scaled-up synths tear through brash, incessant shakers. Ploy is the only one who couldn't resist keeping the vocals front and centre. Instead, the Bristol producer plays with their genetic code, at first pinging them around the infinite space of the tech house roller, before bringing them back to solid form between each walloping clap. These waves of momentum reinvigorate the remix with the lifeblood of the original while turning out something slinkier, and, somehow, even sexier.
With this EP, Lira proves once more that he's a supremely talented world-builder that can dip into any universe. And while "just doing everything" has earned him a cherished spot in the global bass circuit, it's actually when he homes in on a specific sound that he concocts his most incendiary club tracks.
Tracklist01. Mecha
02. Pika 2
03. Macumba
04. Mecha (Ploy’s On The Podium mix)
05. Macumba (Wata Igarashi remix)
06. Mecha (Peder Mannerfelt remix)