It’s been a minute since Innervisions’ Marcus Worgull’s released an EP and even though he’s completed a few remixes to tide us over the music world rejoiced when, out on the last day of January, Pintxos was released. It’s a very complete little EP with three tracks that each have a unique sound, making sure all bases are touched. It has a slow, lyric-filled track which boasts some of the most beautiful vocals around; it has a moody club-ready track whose versatility means it could be placed in many different parts of a set and it has a true Worgull-esque slow-jam with a favourite rolling rhythm.
Unfolding at a tepid speed the intro of Waam Dai reminds us that anything good is worth the wait, they say. As bars progress over and over on themselves the music gains both momentum and instrumentation – percussion becomes more prominent and alto opens up with evenly spaced ‘pops’ of sound that rock and tremble the more it goes on until, almost halfway through, a female soprano voice begins to sing so perfect in harmony that one can’t remember a time where she wasn’t singing. Her voice quivers and trills, occupying all tones close to her until the line is taken over by a plucked stringed instrument and the two take turns delivering the melody; one begins where the other ends, and so on. A carefully placed breakdown follows a sweetly sung bridge and we can only hope this isn’t the last we hear of her. Thankfully our road to the end is filled with her recurring voice, adding sweetness wherever it can.
The EP’s second track Alloh is the type of track you can feel in your soul. Not just because of the punchy repeated notes but because, in contrast to the previous one, is not heavily vocal based which means your perception remains unaltered by diction or semantics. The meaning you choose to create comes almost purely from music – you could choose to draw emotion from the punchy repeated notes; stabbing hard at your exterior or you could fixate on the subtle but necessary atmospheric sounds lingering in the sub bass. But whatever state of mind comes from this track, know that this is a leap you have taken from music to meaning and hold it dearly.
And lastly comes Cautious, produced alongside Pascal Schäfer and a track that avid Worgull fans can place somewhere in his Torture the Artist mix that was released in June 2019. Repeated notes never sounded so good as the perfect unison interval plays again and again, its volume swelling larger with the beginning of each phrase, only to be diminished at the end of it. Long bass notes play one after the other, each pitch allowed ample time to make its mark until it finishes with a slide, playing further on the drawn out theme. The tempo skips faster with the addition of more 16th and 32nd notes, all of which nicely contrasts the elongated feel by the other elements, propelling the track further along. While this is a vivid description of each melodic line acting independently it’s the combination of everything that brings a musical composition to life, a task Marcus Worgull and Pascal Schafer fully succeeded in.
Marcus Worgull’s EP Pintxos was released on Optimo Music on January 31st, 2020.
Review by Tess D. Herd
Torture the Artist 