Miami is a Geministic outpost of complimentary halves: subtropical rainforest and art deco cityscape; unmitigated wealth and staggering poverty; limitless sunshine and equally limitless thunderstorms. From this outpost, culturally and geographically isolated from a state teeming with hillbilly abjection, composer Ramiro Jean-Carlo entertains a unique decadence under the guise of Staccato Du Mal, a project perhaps something of an anomaly in Miami, but no less at home. At turns gauzy and drugged, energized and electric, SDM is analog electronics that would be best heard in a blacklit dance club or a mouldering mansion against the background of any given tropical depression. “El Mago en Ti” shows Jean-Carlo keeping things as sinister as ever, with classic SDM sawtooth baselines and rickety clattering rhythms (Spherical Aberration), “La Gran Evasion”), with the requisite amount of reverb (lots), but with a few surprises: opening track “Drowning Feathers” integrates Jean-Carlo’s affection for classical music into the project, with its complex and sullen chord structure reminiscent of a J.S. Bach organ piece, while the songs “El Mago en Ti” and “Fistful Questioning” showcase an industrial aggression unexplored in the context of SDM.

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