- A colourful and fast-paced mixtape that captures the global cross-pollination of genres in underground electronic music right now.
- Nearly a year ago, Madrid artist firstlin3 posted a mixtape called ⛧PARANOIA STAR⛧ to SoundCloud, the first thing he'd ever shared under that name. Before that, he produced as Lucientes and Concrete Fantasies, making noise and pensive ambient music, respectively. But ⛧PARANOIA STAR⛧ is nothing close to either of those descriptions. Instead, it's a pick 'n' mix of sickly-sweet dancehall meets UK funky meets shoegaze, hosted by a devilish, helium-voiced character (similar to Dean Blunt's DJ Escrow persona). Only a handful of producers were credited on that initial 20-minute mixtape, but now ⛧PARANOIA STAR⛧ has returned, bigger and better, via Amman imprint Drowned By Locals. Its 13-strong guest list of producers and vocalists are a microcosm of the international electronic music scene built around young artists who make hyperpop, hip-hop and dance music all at once.
In his work as Concrete Fantasies, firstline took field recordings from Morocco, Poland and Spain and blurred them into ethereal soundscapes. Here he does something similar, but in a more anthropological sense, amassing collaborators from Spain, Portugal, Egypt and England and bringing them together, slathering their voices with shameless amounts of Auto-Tune. Besides language, there's little to distinguish between one glossy vocal from the next. Instead, they all merge into one glittering mass, an anonymity that mirrors their individual social media profiles—where memes, anime thumbnails, video game screenshots, skating vids and bags of weed replace any kind of mugshot or press picture.
That should give you an idea of the fluid, collage-like approach of ⛧PARANOIA STAR⛧. One moment it's harsh and jerky, the next it's smooth and floaty. frosty's words on the indie pop cut "frog in a well" drift around in circles, repeating the title through a wave of hazy synths. adios adios barks erratically over stabs of sub-bass on the punkish trap of "got a friend at last / codeine," while illfeel harmonises in Arabic above a ripsaw Joker-esque bassline on "toor." Plops of bass add bite to épona's light and infectious Spanish on the downtempo, dancehall-leaning "und3ad." The biggest earworm of them all is "a⛧rian a⛧g rand⛧e," a hard and fast trance-hyperpop hybrid that, which this review already noted, is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to hear at DIY raves around the world right now.
With ⛧PARANOIA STAR⛧, firstlin3 skillfully treads the line between underground cool and mainstream pop. He and his motley crew flitter across so many styles in such a souped-up frenzy, with such abundance of ideas, that it almost feels tongue-in-cheek at first. But no matter the intention, firstlin3's brazen approach is infectious and alluring. All those different flavours, and their boldly artificial notes, are designed to be gobbled up by the fistful.
Lista de sequência de músicas01. look me in my eyes feat frost.y
02. firstlin3 & user4am - lostboy feat. yayoyanoh
03. und3ad feat épona
04. firstlin3 & signal 0 - got a friend at last / codeine feat. adios adios
05. a⛧rian a⛧g rand⛧e feat decade
06. firstlin3 & baby pantera - DDS feat. adios adios
07. firstlin3 & hydrarchy - toor feat. illfeel
08. nyx interlude
09. firstlin3 & gideo - revivir feat épona
10. não quero feat. nigiri ice
11. frog in a well feat frost.y
12. bound feat ID.
13. firstlin3 & hydrarchy - madrid babylon