Le Vasco – Le Vasco EP

Le Vasco is a relatively new and difficult to pin down project. Their self-titled debut EP is available to stream and download for free above via their Bandcamp.

One interesting result of the alt-rap scene’s thriving throughout the past couple of years is that many of its current incarnation’s characteristics manifest themselves in other contexts. Take Le Vasco, for example: the group experiments with hip hop devices without allowing the genre to truly define their music. Rather, clear nods to its off-kilter and even abrasive side are expressed particularly in the production, with rumbling bass synthesizers, disorienting electronics, and somewhat industrial percussion each comprising the EP’s instrumental makeup. Le Vasco grounds their idiosyncratic edge in a well-tuned sense of melody and harmony, with instrumentation establishing conventional emotional resonance just as comfortably on a track like “Goodbye” as it does unsettling eccentricities on “La Transe des Oiseaux.” At the helm of the EP is Louise Calzada’s especially eccentric vocal delivery, which ranges from erratic quasi-rapping to a serene and melodic approach. It ties together a release which represents a vitalizing refusal to commit to simple genre classification without abandoning a smart set of influences.