Album Review: weed420 - amor de encava

Delightfully blissful and abrasive, two contrasting extremes that weed420 carries through impressively well. ‘amor de ancava’ still retains what made the collective one to look out for since last year, but their broad and refined approach to modulation and sample choices only provides more exuberant tones to their mixes.

This Venezuelan epic collage collective has a fascinating way of creating amorphous yet compelling plunderphonics, bringing so many dense mixes that compile so much samples, recordings, instrumental flourishes, and vocal calls all across Latin America, yet there is this clarity that comes through their soundscapes. It’s a creative touch that allows some compelling moments to pop up on their mixtape and their EP back in 2024, touching upon atmospheres that may be rather heavy, but weed420 inputs a sense of modulation that never cushions these collected sounds, but brings the most out of their overall quality.

This overall direction eventually led to their debut album, ‘amor de encava’, and how the collective’s usual approach to sound design only broadens further, allowing their soundscapes to become engrossing more than ever before. Still very much condensed as it is full of clattering percussion, chopped and screwed effects, and blaring sets of recordings and instrumental melodies, but how weed420 maneuvers all of these pieces allow the overall momentum of these songs and the record to feel hypnotic, chaotic, and tranquil all at the same time. The main reason for that is just how their control over modulations has only become more excellent this time, especially as the collective is implementing some gleaming samples that give a wonderful contrast to the weighty pummels of sounds, allowing both the abrasive and gentle moods to resonate a lot more. This lets the tones of the record end up sublime, like the waves of reggaeton samples that gradually saturate on ‘MALUCA’, the emphasis on the vocal recordings that gives way for the noise to punch through on ‘mala intencion ‘PEGADITAS MIX 2008’’, the overwhelming mixes of guitars, pianos, drums, and vocals that create both bliss and distraught on ‘nada va a pasar’, the rumbling hypnagogic atmosphere that directs to the assortment of grooves on ‘La Guerra De Los Santos’, the gently collided samples that modulates into frictious noise on the 7-minute length of ‘el chiste más largos de la historia’, and the quaking sound collage swivels on ‘terminal’.

While the overall resonance to ‘amor de encava’ may not click from start to finish - mostly due to its boisterously abstract nature and how the chosen samples are reference points that will stick more for those who are more familiar with them - the way that weed420 puts into thoughtfully structuring and modulating these stuffy soundscapes is captivating, especially with the expanded sample choices bringing lighter tones to complement the heavier ones. It’s an acknowledgment of their distinct sound collage soundscapes and building upon it, simultaneously carrying lilting and bruising melodies without crushing one over the other. There may be an abstract mystique that shrouds the record, yet the gradual melodies still allow so much hypnotic captivation to be formed.

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Favorite Tracks: ‘MALUCA’, ‘mala intencion ‘PEGADITAS MIX 2008’’, ‘nada va a pasar’, ‘Le Guerra De Los Sexos’, ‘el chiste más largo de toda la historia’, ‘terminal’

Least Favorite Track: ‘PROPAGANDA’