Muave – IMAGINARY
10.18.22 by Matty McPherson
It’s nearing another big number (400 to be precise), and Already Dead remains a most dedicated (domestic) label when it comes to a consistent barrage of new sounds; from whatever is happening anywhere at any time, really. It’s a bonafide minor league where the beauty of its variety keeps my eyes opened. Anything can catch me. Case in point: the label opened 2022 with an immediate leftfield and most welcome zoner that captured a real slice of a moment. Muave’s Imaginary. Returning alum, Nandele Maguni, finds himself in a trio with Chris Born and João Roxo during a live performance at the Gala Gala Festival in Maputo, just a little more than a year ago.
Maguni’s been developing beats for an era; earliest I’ve seen of his uploaded them to Bandcamp dating back to 2013. He’s worked in and around the coastal capitol of Moçambique, Maputo, and its scene of electronic music, with a speciality pushed towards tactical refinements of trap. He’s denoted trap as a “warrior sound” The pulse of the Africa. Interviews with Maguni reflect a person who has a dedicated ear and pulse to the modern sounds of Maputo–traffic and coal carts, industrialization and street culture. It’s a dedicated, craft for Maguni that he brings a swiftly resilient and consistent process to. In one interview, he claimed that once a beat is done, after a few tweaks he moves on. This can make for bonafide bangers, but his under praised Plafonddeinst tape for Already Dead back in 2020 revealed his capacity for ambience and transitory affairs. The Muave trio actively twerk with that vision, adding in an extra laptop and a whiff of ambient keys that present delirious, multifaceted soundscapes.
Perhaps this is because the trio are able to squeeze a lot of finesse and push them into time-bending loops out of their four main pieces on the tape. Each one is a sort of quadrant this sound can tackle, all built around trap’s mechanics, but now pitched shifted and warped into ambient big bass chill out, acid techno gone wonky, street-level dub of a most industrial accord, and longform club DJ bangers. Opening fourteen minute cut, S701 Noise, brings around late 80s synth bass (enough to recall Massive Attack’s Five Man Army), glitched out space electronics, and just a pulsing trap line that’s swinging and grounding all of those elements. The cut’s pulse is sinister and riveting even as it harkens to a chill out room. Born and Roxo slowly tease out soundscapes and let them, confidently evolve into a pervasive dub fog. Ambient trap can be a detailed listen.
It can also just be a fun as hell one; Nalombo is a steady 7 minute absolute pout of amped up boppin’ bliss. The video linked below of Maguni is absolutely wonderful; a euphoria and ecstatic charisma hangs over his face of what shenanigans the trio just cracked themselves into. The whole thing looks considerably “hype,” recalling his rooftop sampling and display of FRESH beats in you can find online. 09 00 24 builds from the ground up, with nature samples and wind instruments setting a stage for those lime green tasty synths from before with a slick low end of trap rhythm that hit with a punching bag knockout. It’s sounds like a flowing trance state for the trio. Enough to knock psychedelic void energy on knockout “final boss” of a closer. Motorcycles, static electricity, whistles, alarms; all tied together by dub texture. The immediacy of the tantalizingly metallic trap percussive sounds come out on the laptop, but the tape listen over speakers continued in that ambient-esque lineage. Truly a blessed release.
VERY Limited Cassette & VHS, as well as a Bundle of the two are available at the Already Dead Bandcamp & Already Dead Tapes Webstore
