In countries with a bloody history, built on empire, it has long been the case that migrants, and the children of migrants, from formerly colonised countries are responsible for a disproportionate amount of cutting edge culture. In Britain, the examples are too numerous to recall; from lover’s rock and dancehall in the 80s, through to drill, grime, and … pretty much everything else.
Batida music is perhaps the most pertinent example of this in modern Portugal. The modern batida, practiced by the likes of DJ Nervoso and DJ Marfox, was born in the suburbs of Lisbon, and incorporates touches of old school African dance styles like Angolan semba and Cape Verdean funaná into visceral, percussive modern dance music. Fuelled largely by Portuguese youth proud of their heritage in Angola, São Tomé, or other African-Lusosphere countries, batida has become one of the biggest youth culture movements in the country over the past decade, and it only continues to grow.
Whilst most of the batida releases have, to date, centred around the enigmatic Lisbon label Príncipe – distinctive line-drawing covers from Márcio Matos to unite them all in one scribbly cannon – the genre is starting to attract interest from beyond the Iberian Peninsula.
Just as recent years have seen people look to the African continent for the writhing dance styles circulated by Ugandan label Nyege Nyege tapes, worldwide audiences are increasingly interested in diasporic African music that incorporates unusual rhythms and timbres into something with hard-hitting modern production. The thumping batida sound certainly fits this billing.
Dentro De Mim is DJ Narciso’s first release for an international label, Chinese dance label Svbkvlt, and it can be seen as a perfect entry-point into both his discography, and the electric world of batida. Narciso first started to release music as part of the batida collective RS Produções, before he started to really find his own signature sound on a string of solo releases for Príncipe.
Born and raised in the Lisbon suburbs, but often paying his dues to his “motherland” Angola, DJ Narciso’s sound is characterised by abrasive textures and syncopated rhythms that are often relatively slow-moving, and very heavy.
Across ‘Dentro De Mim’, which the producer describes as a nostalgic work full of “memories that refuse to fade”, he often incorporates one or two very melodic samples into his pounding compositions, and so his music has the effect of being both physically grinding, and emotionally evocative. The slinky piano and swirling strings on ‘Puro’ are the best example of this; pensive and dreamlike whilst the driving force of the percussion is discordant and filthy.
As well, there is a real human physicality across ‘Dentro De Mim’, which is possibly its best quality. The drum machines lurch and lumber; it sounds like the pulsating rhythmic output comes at the cost of vast energy. For most producers, four-to-the-floor beats sound unremarkably effortless, but across this Narciso album they sound like an exorcism. The metallic beats of ‘Segredo’ twitch beneath airy vocal samples with a mechanical awkwardness, whilst the way that the scattergun array of shakers and clangs on ‘Terrugem’ come to life would make it the perfect soundtrack to a cyberpunk Frankenstein story.
With ‘Dentro De Mim’, Narciso set out to combine influences and memories from different periods of his life into one cohesive whole, a “reflection of everything (he’s) lived through”. A brisk half hour listen, that contains several whole worlds in its grooves. A lot of ground is covered here, each track relatively short, and so evocative of its own soundworld, making it work so well as a whole album. Wildly different tempos sit alongside each other, whilst novel choices of texture constantly recontextualise the tactile drum machines.
‘Objectivos’ will stir you into a pensive trance with its light drum machines, and cloudy synthesiser textures, whilst the sirens and distorted water-drip percussion of mutant techno groover ‘Pressāo’ will immediately pull you out of it. With Dentro De Mim, DJ Narciso has not just conjured up a brilliant mile-a-minute dance record, but one that also shines a light on the breadth and brilliance of batida, Portugal’s most exciting musical export.
