In a 2024 interviewLeón mentioned being uninterested in touring and nightclubs and defined that he was “anti-drums” when he started engaged on A Tropical Entropy. Although they’re not the principle attraction, the drums are available in sizzling, touchdown immediately with needlepoint precision and a low-end heft that crashes like waves in opposition to artifical seawalls. On “R.I.P. Present,” the observe hits high-gear when the dembow rhythm goes double-time. Melodic components blur like billboards flying by on a freeway, a second of fleeting escape earlier than we’re drawn again into León’s extra insular headspace. Generally issues go too quick, like on “Millennium Freak,” whose stuttering pace dembow drums and muttered vocals create the chaos of arising too quick with no sign of ending, the second you understand that maybe what you took wasn’t what you thought it was. The moods proceed to swing with “Hexxxus,” a club-ready, dancehall-ish observe that begins out irritable and twitchy, but finally ends up someplace near attractive.
When he’s not DJing or producing pop singers, León calls himself a sound artist—which incorporates his work for an set up centered round a coral reef off the coast of Miami—and A Tropical Entropy contains a few of his richest and most evocative sounds. “Metromover” is underwater techno, with synth notes and vocal snippets touchdown at random like mild filtering by means of the floor of the ocean. The album’s catchiest music, “Crush,” is simply 91 seconds lengthy and produced from a collection of seemingly disconnected arpeggios that kind a romantic entire gone earlier than you realize it, as if León is catching wisps of smoke and manipulating them till they fade away utterly.
These impermanent sounds, the way in which they seem to move by means of glass and water, mimic the city panorama of Miami, proper right down to its famously decadent nightlife. The flickering emotional interference is the product of too many nights out, while you’ve rewired your mind slightly too eagerly—and incorrectly. It’s the bizarre peaceful-agitated-buzzing-sad feeling you get after leaving Downtown Miami bar The Nook at 7 a.m. for a pointless post-club drink you positively didn’t want (“Product of Attraction,” which appears like a UK storage love music and lament tied into one excruciating knot, might’ve been made after a bender like that).
Miami is a spot of contradictions that may really feel precarious simply by current: too sizzling, continuously below risk from hurricanes, at risk of falling into the ocean. Equally precarious and unsuited for our instances is the lifetime of the DJ—or anybody who has skilled aspirations across the dance music trade. This can be a scene that may kill you as a lot because it nourishes you, pulling you into the undertow whereas providing you with fleeting glimpses of success, enjoyable, and glory, placing folks on a pedestal for the mere act of enjoying music to drink and do medication to.
A Tropical Entropy is a self-deprecating title for a landmark second in León’s profession. Positive, there’s progress right here, however there’s additionally doubling again, beginning over, giving into anxiousness, typically all in the identical observe. The unsteady rhythms and uncertain music constructions reveal the malaise in returning not solely to Miami however to bounce music itself, which makes A Tropical Entropy really feel alive and imperfect, similar to the town it was born in. Satisfaction mingles with restlessness and unease, whereas the sepia wash of despair bleeds in on the corners. All of it involves a head because the jittery “Broward Boyy” transitions into “Bikini,” León’s 2024 hit that returns to shut out the album. This oceanside torch music was at all times melancholy, however now there’s one thing else in it. Relying in your studying, “Meet me on the seashore” might both be a romance decreased to routine or a Springsteenian name to flee. Possibly it’s each without delay, the sound of somebody locked in a cycle they will’t get out of.
All merchandise featured on Pitchfork are independently chosen by our editors. Nevertheless, while you purchase one thing by means of our retail hyperlinks, we might earn an affiliate fee.
Nick León: A Tropical Entropy
