Spanish artist Helena Piti continues to establish her artful Argia alias with a mini-album on Atomnation. Across six superb tracks, the formally trained artist brings serenity, musicality and gorgeous melody to her stylishly designed sounds.
Piti has been immersed in music all her life. From a young age, she studied piano and double bass at the conservatory before evolving into the electronic world and quickly making her mark. She has released with the likes of Stil Vor Talent, Sincopat and DUAT while holding down her esteemed residency at Madrid's well-known Mondo Disko and touring places like Watergate and about:blank. This self-taught producer uses music as a way of expressing a wide range of inner feelings and she has plenty lined up for 2022 including this adventurous new release.
Argia brings her unstinting of classical music to her emotive electronic compositions right from the off here: 'Can't Scape' is a clean and serene cut with a hint of electro and kinetic drum programming. The warped synths flesh out the groove while soulful vocals ring out up top. 'Everyday Everything' is a firmly rooted and heavy deep house roller with loopy melodic motifs that lock you into a state of hypnosis. The drums are rubbery and seriously weighty and the mystic atmosphere up top is permeated with haunting pads and scraping hits.
'Robot Ash' is a quick and prickly track with glitchy textures and broken beats all overlaid with pixelated melodic rain that gets your mind amongst the stars. There is a fantastic bounce in the drums of 'The Last Tiger' which lifts the mood with big percussion and angelic vocal harmonies as well as some withering synth work. 'Anatomia' is one for the dreamers, with blissful melodies and warm chords filling the skies over a sleek deep house groove. Last of all comes the driving title track 'Backgammon' which powers on through a starry night with the same rich sense of melody that defines all these tracks.
This is a finely crafted release stuffed with detail, and it's as good for late-night home listening as it is escaping to another world on the dance floor.