[Historia y Violencia]

Imagining hitherto un-thought of couplings can be an amusing pastime; animals being able to cross species breed; chessgammon, the new board game for the weary pawn; vodka ibuprofen mixers, the preventative refresher. Of course they can prove to go horribly wrong too; “Alien Vs Predator” and a McCain/Palin ticket, just for example. A recent coupling that hits in all the right spots is Santiago Salazar and Silent Servant sharing release space with what is hopefully the first of an ongoing collaboration in the Historia Y Violencia series.

Both packing considerable credentials (Salazar is one third of Los Hermanos and general UR guerrilla, Silent Servant is AKA Jasper, founder of San Franciscan labels Cytrax and Delay), it’s impossible to distinguish which track comes in first on the day. Salazar’s “Santuario” builds demented, throbbing chords over a steady, distorting pad, the result sounding more like it was devised in Berlin than Detroit. Fragments of warmth are found in the percussion but everywhere else this is a distant, affected piece of jacking brilliance. Silent Servant takes no prisoners with “Lo Profundo” firing off tracers of white noise while steely cold chords clamber after them into the ether. Subtle turns of melody provide contrast from the gritty main fare but regardless this is pure dance floor combustion. Silent Servant taps the brakes slightly on his usually unrelenting approach displayed on his Sandwell District releases while Santiago Salazar toughens up his mystical Detroit/Aztec vibe. The result makes for absolutely essential gears!