Debit - Animus
Reviewed by Chano

This is a great ambient/downtempo/noise album from Debit, a NY based artist associated with the Mexican record label/electronic music curators N.A.A.F.I. Lots of different genres mixed together here - from ambient to experimental to techno to others - but they all come together nicely on this collection. I just read that the theme of the record is about gender spectrums and embodied struggles related to gender, which adds a dynamic conceptual layer to these tracks. Great selections to play in a more midtempo/downtempo and/or experimental set! Enjoy.

FCCs: None!
Favorites: 2, 3, 4, 5, 10,
RIYL: Experimental music, ambient music, glitchy electronic music, Boards of Canada,

1. “Nadie Diga” - 3:01 - downtempo with snare rolls, kicks, and atmospheric reverberating synths; different melodic sounds come together and get panned in the mix; bassey drone leads to transition toward the last third of track; whole thing feels like it’s about to lock into a melody and then doesn’t. Keeps you on your toes. Very cool track.
2. “Gauzy” - 4:22 - dark sounding bass synth drones with vocal sample chopped up and played in skittish way. Kick drums throughout first minute, before the bass leaves and the snare comes in with a dramatic synth lead.
3. “Remain” - 3:01 - spacey sounds echo and pulse as this track kicks off. Distorted kick drum smacks in nice dramatic repetitive pattern and then stops. This feels like the sound of an unresolved journey through the woods or desert, in a good meditative way.
4. “Audiacious” - 2:48 - sort of aggressive drums with reverb careen through the airwaves. Intense synths come in and transition to a new drum pattern and then fade away before washing over us listeners again. Drums sound like gun shots. Shimmery synth is nice counterpoint to the upbeat, tense, and semi aggro drums.
5. “Matriz” feat. Wasted Fates - 3:34 - dramatic and poppy synth lead and deep 808ish bass start this track off; percussion adds a nice spacey vibe to this track. The structure feels more clearly apparent, in a way, than on the previous other tracks.
6. “Anamnesis” feat. Zutzut - 3:40 - Atmospheric synths and meandering kick drums open it up for the first minute before leading into a little more coherent kick drum pattern as the atmospheric synths wash over the track back and forth.
7. “Lamat” - 4:46 - atmospheric vibes; no kick drum on this one; lots of clicky sounds and bells ringing, along with some sounds that cut in an out with tremolo like vibes.
8. “Realist” - 3:25 - meditative chords pan through the speakers while occasional percussive sounds (glass bottle getting tapped? Triangle?) give the track some anchors; some blips and bloops also come in as the washed out chords take a pause before coming back in.
9. “Power Chords” - 3:40 - more meditative vibes on the chords open up the track, but get punctuated by some more distorted synth sounds; this sounds like I would imagine early morning fog in a forest sounding like if it had a soundtrack. Eerie vibes.
10. “Inflection” - 2:26 - echoey percussion and ethereal chords on pretty synths contributing to meditative vibes.
11. “Mitosis” - 4:27 - A spaced out synth, a more buzzy synth, and some interesting and very clean percussive sounds all gather together and weave into one another on this track. Some hand drum sounds come in half way through for a second adding nice texture.
12. “Epigone” - 2:34 - guitar sounds open this track and give it a whole different sonic texture, but similar vibe, compared to the other tracks. Really high pitched loud synths and deep watery bass come in along with some twinkling bells/percussive sounds in the background.