Tomas Urquieta Calatea EP

Hospital rooms and bustling dance floors. It's hard to think of two spaces that are more different, but when Tomas Urquieta's father was hospitalized for several weeks with a serious illness last year, the NYC-based Chilean producer found himself in a particularly reflective mood--and an urgent need to make music. Armed with only his laptop and iPhone, he started making tracks at his father's bedside, filtering his feelings--along with samples he'd collected of medical equipment in the room-- through his production software. Those tracks now form the bulk of the Calatea EP, Urquieta's potent Seilscheibenpfeiler debut. Named after one of his favorite plants, the record is also a nod to his mother, who filled his childhood home with greenery, but its contents are ultimately closer to an untamed jungle than a tranquil garden. Calatea may have been created in the sober confines of a hospital room, but even its most introspective offering (the EP's title track, which also opens the record) is built atop feverishly percolating rhythms, their bassy swing pulling from Latin club sounds and the UK hardcore continuum alike. "Taro" is a thundering, siren-filled assault, while "Sotto Voce" feels almost claustrophobic, its maelstrom of churning percussion, banshee-like basslines, and blaring alarms grabbing hold of the dancefloor and refusing to let go. EP closer "Vitra" offers no respite, its marauding industrial stomp is as likely to inspire a cardiac event as it is a raucous dance party. These are heavy, hard-charging club tunes, and though Urquieta's father is thankfully all better now, the emotional turmoil caused by his hospital stay will forever be infused into the Calatea EP.