FILTER ALBUMS
Sofia Kourtesis ★★★★
Woman in black: Sofia Kourtesis dials up the quirkiness.
Madres
NINJA TUNE. CD/DL/LP
Skewed, intimate, modern house music that pulses with vitality.
THERE CAN’T be too many songs dedicated to neurosurgeons – let alone ones set to clattering two-step – but that’s what Sofia Kourtesis presents on Madres. The Berlin-based Peruvian appealed to a leading specialist, Peter Vajkoczy, to help prolong her mother’s life, offering to name a song after him. It piqued Vajkoczy’s interest, who successfully treated Kourtesis Sr – an outcome that informs this hopeful, celebrator y album, soundtracked by elegant dancefloor rhythms and breathy Spanish-language vocals. Like other practitioners of cerebral house – see DJ Koze, Caribou and Kornél Kovács – Madres dials up the quirkiness, offering much intrigue. Like the way an echo-drenched male voice instantly steers the twinkling Funkhaus in a darker direction, or how cut-up vocals add an extra percussive element to Estación Esperanza and its Afrobeats underpinnings. Kourtesis also proves her master y when adopting a more traditional house aesthetic – the anthemic Si Te Portas Bonito shimmers like August sun on salt flats. This is an intimate portrait painted in bold strokes.