Opuntia by Camila De Laborde

Camila wrote and recorded this EP whilst exploring circuit bending for the first time. The songs developed and grew from small, raw, noises or bizarre melodies from her self-built sequencers.

Submerged in building DIY circuitry, she became hypnotized by its relationship to nature. Chemical elements, multi-coloured stones, material states rapidly changing into others. Each track on this EP connects to these encounters - rough, odd, movements, sudden bursts of colour, and bizarre, deliberate rhythms. It’s noisy. It makes use of bright analogue melodies, and it contains vocals. It’s also exciting that it’s brought together three labels, Lumen Lake, Schamoni Musik, and SVS Records, who will be collaborating for the first time to release a limited vinyl edition of 300 copies.

As one half of electronic duo Camila Fuchs, Camila has performed at Mutek Mexico, Ars Electronica, MexFest London, Gotwood, and Dalston Music Festival. This is her first solo release.

Tracklist

1.	The Blue Stone	3:52

2.	We Are Conducting	2:34

3.	You Couldn't Build That, You Couldn't Pretend	3:18

4.	Him. Solid	3:24

Credits

released September 23, 2016

REVIEWS

God Is In The TV:
“‘Opuntia’ is an extraordinary multicoloured slab of four pieces of avant-garde electronic music; the sound of an artist experimenting for the first time with self-made electronics and how she can harness them to create bewildering, challenging and quite striking music that puts one in mind of Bjork at her most challenging and experimental or the work of Jenny Hval.”

ATTN: Magazine:
“‘There is no end,’ chants Camila De Laborde during the third track on Opuntia. It’s an apt statement for music that manifests as a continuous, restless transformation process. Over the course of 14 minutes, I hear these pieces strive to adapt and re-adapt to their environment, as tiny modulations in one corner of the frame cause ripples of re-adjustment across De Laborde's’ web of interconnected sound. Nothing is fixed. She gravitates toward sonic notions of volatility and frailty: staccato synth pulses that leap into the air and vanish, noises that crumple as they navigate tampered circuitry, keyboards drenched in a vibrato that leaves their outlines undulating like shapes viewed through a glass of water. Perky curiosity melts into sombre vulnerability, as clipped rhythms fall away and let sad, slurred melodies pour through. No sooner have I comprehended my surroundings than everything has started to shift again, forever reframing what I thought I knew…These meticulous patterns of DIY circuitry move too quickly to understand, one can either helplessly attempt to keep pace or revel in the sensation of losing control. Opuntia is a fizzing, spinning, exhilarating ode to the latter.”

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