Vertigem by Marcvs

Vertigem, Marcvs’ first release for problemas dos outros is both a highlight and a point of no return for the São Paulo artist. Having spent the past decade honing his electro-experimental aesthetic, here Marcvs blows up the house he built and marvels at the swirling debris. His profound sensibility shows in the floating blocks of beat hurtling around the stereo field which congeal with pieces of song, the pre-pandemic distinction between club sounds and introspection retconned into non-existence.

“Eu Vejo Beleza” opens the record in extravagant fashion, and whirlwind celebration of life featuring musician and anthropologist Meno Del Picchia (a former member of Kiko Dinucci‘s and Rodrigo Campos’ bands and current bass player for Pernambuco singer Otto) in vocals, acoustic bass and additional synth work. Meno’s ritualistic chant grounds the melodic and percussive bits’ kinetic euphoria to give us a song which as veritable blueprint for Brazilian-aesthetics cyberpunk in the 2020’s. Next up is title-track Vertigem, 90’s Techno stock sounds pushed into 5AM paranoia in a deserted downtown club, that very image now a distant memory invoking nostalgia along with the familiar dread. Such is lockdown life. And such is acceptance and renewal, as Extinção circles back not only to the beginning of the EP but to Marcvs’ career as a whole: 808 shards exploding in our faces, hinting at electro here, footwork there; a droning incantation is drifting in tandem with synth wisps, riding the track into techno-shamanistic ego death. They say terror and confusion are as good as any other feeling to achieve deep trance states, and so it proves in this EP.

Marcvs is the latest alias of São Paulo musician and visual artist Marcus Couto. Marcus has been steadily releasing records and tracks and for the past decade, aligning his penchant for shimmering melody and exquisite electro-weirdness. He started out as missiles at a wedding, and is also part of side projects like Osasco Dynamics (with Victor Lucindo, also part of problemas’ roster) and Isolamento Acústico. He lives in São Paulo with his girlfriend, where he works as a musician, painter and freelance journalist.

ephemera, digressions, rants
enchantments.

outrosproblemasdosoutros@gmail.com