Raze the Dancefloor With Pobvio’s Chaotic Mix of Underground Club Music

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Raze the Dancefloor With Pobvio’s Chaotic Mix of Underground Club Music

The Uruguay-based artist blends genres from across continental borders as “a very powerful healing tool” in this week’s Noisey Mix.
MB
illustrated by Mikey Burey

It’s hard to disentangle the internet’s benefits from all the negativity and anxiety it inspires, but one of the truly good things is in the way it’s made music virtually borderless. Thanks to the democratization of distribution platforms, it’s easy enough for a producer in the suburbs of Lisbon to take inspiration from American rap music, suffuse it with a local approach to polyrhythms and upload it back to Soundclound to be played in clubs worldwide—further localized and iterated into new forms entirely. Smarter people than me have written about how this works practically (I recommend DJ Rupture’s outstanding book Uproot if you are interested in these movements), but I do know that I have watched with glee as the music world, and in particular, the styles of dance music under the broad umbrella of club music reap its effects.

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Over the past couple of years, I’ve listened DJs from all over the world make stops in New York, slamming together club music from the east coast of the United States, batida from Portugal, footwork, trap, and particularly Brazilian baile funk—integrating all these styles and more as if they’ve always been meant to be in conversation with one another. It’s a thrilling new language for “the club” and one that people are consistently expanding upon.

Photo by Bruno Nogueira

One of the most exciting voices in this conversation has been the Salviatek collective co-founded in Montevideo, Uruguay in 2014 by the producers and DJs Lechuga Zafiro and Pobvio. Together, they’ve explored the myriad ways all genres can be shattered and pieces back together in delirious collages on mixes and original productions, also emphasizing the traditional music and rhythms of their country—like candombe, an Afro-Uruguayan form of music and dance. Their Bandcamp and Soundcloud pages have become essential listening for anyone invested in the ways music from across the world can interact, you’d be well advised to go check out all of it.

Today, Pobvio has turned in this week’s Noisey Mix, which serves as a sequel to a mix he made earlier called Calentamiento Global, and it’s also is a great introduction to this whole approach to DJing, for anyone who’s yet to encounter it. In just 40 minutes, Pobvio rifles through Jersey club, Uruguayan pop songs, an edit of Metallica vocals over Daddy Yankee beats, baile funk, and Ariana Grande. It’s a whirlwind, but in Pobvio’s world, all of these styles deserve to be in dialogue with one another, and he mixes them in a way that emphasizes both the chaos and the beauty of it—showing the collisions between styles, but still finding the throughlines between them as well. And most of all, it’s fun as hell, if you recognize any of the names in the tracklist, it’s a fair bet that you’ve never heard them spun in quite this way before. So listen to the whole thing below, alongside an interview with Pobvio about the mix and his approach to mixing all these sounds and styles.

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How are we meant to enjoy the mix? What's the perfect setting?
Under the influence.

Is synesthesia a real thing and if so, what color is this mix?
Rainbow.

Was there any specific concept to the mix?
It's a sequel to my previous mix: Calentamiento Global (Global Warming).

Do you have a favorite moment on this mix?
Actually two, at the start, when Ozuna's “Única: comes in; and at the mix's climax, when “Mover Y Rebotar” from Uruguayan pop artist Miway blends into a fast-paced Jersey Club beat.

You link so many different styles of what could be broadly called club music in this mix. Is it important for you for all these styles to be in conversation with one another? How does that impulse play out on your original productions?
Most of these styles come from undeveloped "third world" club scenes, others from non-mainstream "first world" club scenes, in which producers and DJs play with mainstream pop music as much as experiment with innovative rhythms and sound design that often tell a story and link to traditional/folkloric cultures. It is important for me to address these cultures that I admire and work with; I see it as way of being grateful and paying respect. Also it represents a form of resistance to issues that we face through time. The ritual of gathering to dance and enjoy ourselves freely is still one of the mains of "what's left" of non-western cultures that many of us come from. A very powerful healing tool. [This is] the focus especially on my original productions.

Your original email to me about this mix said that it was meant to reflect the intensity of the emerging electronic music scene from the south of South America. What’s the scene like? Do you have a big community of likeminded artists and DJs?
It's a full range DIY scene, with little-to-no resources, it’s very frustrating and fulfilling at the same time. I think that's why it's intense, you have to put your heart and soul in it. As you know, we have very different realities within America, and if you don't come from the white and privileged elites you have to work twice as hard to get close to where you wanna be, and that reality is particularly strong in Uruguay and Argentina.

How do edits like the “Gasolina” / “Fuel” thing that starts this mix come to you? Does it differ from track to track? What makes you know an idea works? Do you have lots of failed mashups hanging around on old USBs?
Not really. You'll have to ask El Iñaki (@nassti_698) for the “Gasolina Metal Edit,” he's the one that came to me with the crossover idea. Some edits are club tools, others are just for fun, but when you have a good one like 'No más te amos', you know because your friends want to play it and dance to it :)

Obviously there’s a sense of humor in your approach to DJing, in the way you mix more experimental music and edits like the one mentioned above—how important is it for you to keep your sets fun?
Definitely one of the keys of pleasure. Resilience and humor go hand-in-hand in surviving/living life in this messed up/magical world.

Tracklist:
Iñaki x Pobvio - Gasolina (Metal Edit)
Ozuna - Única (DJ Alan Quiñonez)
DURA DJ - Terre Terre Terremoto Pa Tu Cola
Konshens - Turn Around [BloodXidE™ X Skunkkie Sam Remix 2018]
Kid Cala - Yo se que tu
Ynfynyt Scroll - Salvaje
La Diabla - Lemon
Korn x J Alvarez - Fallin Hataz (Deltraton Bootleg)
MC Kitinho e MC 7 Belo - Promoçao na Favela (DJ R7 Lançamento 2018)
Hector El Bambino - Noche De Travesura (BMORE Remix)
Sand Pact - Breast Refusal
DJ Roberto - Eu Sinto Falta Da Mamada
DJ Taj & DJ Diamond Kuts - Rake It Up (Jersey Club Mix)
Ariana Grande ft Nicky Minaj - Side 2 Side (2DLQTZ Cumbia Remix)
Miway - Mover y Rebotar
JoeTheProducer - Cold Cypher
Lil Crack x Don Omar, Wisin & Yandel - No Sé De Ella (No Boy Edit)
donk bubble
MORO - ELYNCIPE
Anitta x Dinamarca - Paradinha // Niños (miuccia)
Aggromance - Rotas Cadenas