Ricardo Villalobos - Swamp (Ricardo Villalobos Variation) [Latency]

Format: 12" in printed sleeve.
CAT: LTNC036LP

Ricardo Villalobos lets loose on Mohammad Reza Mortazavi’s Persian hand drum tombak workings, expanding a 4-minute core of inspiration into 24 minutes of hypnotic polyrhythmic traction.

Taking off from an original piece called "Swamp" that already recalled Ricardo's winding minimal techno magic style, the Chilean-German maverick builds a more impulsive, rhythmically rough-textured version, destined to hypnotize dancefloors for its entire duration.

Highlighting the undulating bass and raising the volume while maintaining the rough, frictional character of the original, Villalobos fully immerses himself in the groove with his usual technical obsession, extracting additional string motifs and modulating the flow in his characteristic style: tense yet winding, loose yet precise, in a back and forth that crosses cultures and gets under the skin of the material itself.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi (b. 1979, Iran) is a virtuoso percussionist known for his groundbreaking work with the tombak and daf, traditional Persian drums that he has radically redefined through new playing techniques and an expanded vocabulary. Mortazavi began playing the tombak at the age of six. By nine, he had already surpassed his teacher and won Iran's national tombak competition, a distinction he would repeat six more times. In his early twenties, he was already considered one of the most important performers of the instrument. Since then, his music has continued to evolve, expanding beyond tradition into new forms and languages.

Ricardo Villalobos (b. 1970, Chile) is a pioneering figure in minimal techno, celebrated for his hypnotic approach to rhythm. Raised in Germany after his family fled the Pinochet regime, Villalobos was drawn to percussion early on: he started playing congas and bongos at eleven, developing a physical and tactile relationship with rhythm that would later define his production style. Immersed in both Latin American folk traditions and the emerging house and techno scenes of late 80s Europe, he began DJing and producing in the 90s, quickly achieving cult status in global club culture.

“Swamp” originally appears on the album “Nexus”, released in 2025 via Latency.