Learning to interpret electronic music: A review of Dubloop's Ko-jee-ma EP
By JCClemente

With slippery beats that fall on and off the 4/4 grid, an irregular fx
placed like...whenevah, Dubloop ain't nobody's loop slave.

Obviously, Dubloop's new Pertin-nce netrelease "Ko-jee-ma" isn't about
the perfected layouts normally found in "minimal" production. Inside
the window of his windowless Quebec City studio, Maxime Tanguay
generously makes use of many oblique accidents (or were they planned
out beforehand?) and captures the unpredictability of a live
performance in four distinct yet related pieces. With Dubloop, he's
found the perfect alias for falling happily off the safety net of a
DAW grid.

Like previous Dubloop recordings, any found sound can take form the
basis of a track. In this release, Maxime used field recordings from a
winter getaway to Cuba's "Ko-jee-ma" (or was it the Villa Cojimar
Resort? Max doesn't quite remember) as the basis of the primary
'ambient dub' sound.

And then there's the story of the EP itself. Created years after the
visit to Cuba, things get a bit hazy upon recollection. But there's a
narrative to the disorientation where nothing is lost in translation
but recaptured, remembered and reinterpreted.

There's something that happens on Day 1: "adaptation", "figuring out",
"wondering why" upon entering this new virtual or physical real of
experience.

Eventually, we arrive at Day 2 and "su-pero" -- which means the hotel
has just stocked the minibar with a dark bottle of Cubay and some
singing Guaracheros possibly just turned a corner three blocks away.

Disorienting, imprecise. We learn to grasping at things and meaning,
then let them go.