Retrospective Frequencies

Scrolling EL PLVYBXY’s Instagram, you’ll find a scowling bad boy, smoking blunts in the streets of Buenos Aires and DJing sweaty queer parties across Latin America. But read his interviews, and you’ll note an entirely different side of the Argentinian producer (real name Gregorio Da Silva). He speaks of decolonizing South American dancefloors through a return to Indigenous rhythms and honoring his grandfather, folk composer Ariel Ramírez. Da Silva’s music, released on underground labels from Houston’s Majía to Colombia’s TraTraTrax, reveals a composer’s precision: techno, footwork, cumbia, and raptor house collide in meticulous arrangements that bombard the dancefloor with rapturous novelty.

For an innovator rising on the winds of the global underground, a first LP is momentous. Retrospective Frequencies (released on the scrappy Mexico City label Terminal) combines both sides of Da Silva’s practice: It’s quintessential EL PLVYBXY—complex, ravey, and unapologetic—yet newly refined. The 10 tracks reimagine nostalgic dance sounds through a sensual, ever-morphing palette where organic and digital tones blur and change is the only constant. Though Da Silva’s past work spans numerous genres, here he sounds more focused: Hard house, tribal house, raptor, techno, and bass cohere easily. But the record’s spark comes from guaracha—a Cuban folk rhythm transformed across Latin America and now reborn as post-techno. Da Silva refracts the style, once built from hand percussion and melodic toms, through electric guitar, modular synths, and sub-bass: folk music expressed through circuitry.

Though billed as a continuous narrative, the album feels more like a collection of short stories. On opener “Asuntos Subacuaticos,” influenced by Drexciya’s Journey of the Deep Sea, bass throbs like pressure from the deep until the syncopated beat finally hits. The track is smooth and reflective like water—immersive, but too ambient to fully hook. Momentum builds on “Bump Por Bump,” where twinkling woodwinds, burbling bass, and an insistent laser combine with breathy vocal stutters in a gritty yet immaculate composition that mutates constantly without losing the plot.

Retrospective Frequencies offers a tour through distinct stylistic and geographic regions of the artist’s mind, aided by a small group of collaborators. Featuring fellow Argentine producer ROOi, “Los Cabures” opens like a misty forest, with flutes, wooden percussion, and bird calls; the mix glitters digitally as those natural textures fade, leaving wistful nostalgia. In contrast, “Bohemio Del Sur” (with Da Silva’s conceptual twin Imaabs, of Chile) delivers signature EL PLVYBXY heat and fury, tossing glitchy scratches and rave stabs with a jungle break so finely chopped it sounds like a shaken jar of keys. Echoing the chaos of Latin American cities, guaracha melodies and kuduro rhythms weave in and out as the artists edge us by building, but never quite delivering, the expected drop.

At times, that restraint turns to stagnation. “Frecuencias Retrospectivas” (named for the album’s title in Spanish) similarly builds with no release—listening feels like someone gleefully watching you squirm. Yet it embodies the project’s statement of purpose: tribal drums meet electric guaracha, while electro synths sparkle and purr. What one really craves here is a jolt of energy, which Da Silva delivers on the DJ-friendly “Venga,” blending hard house and raptor with lows tuned for massive systems. The album’s steadiest track, its “venga, venga” sample oozes libido, locking the groove tight.

Da Silva is most exciting when producing for the dancefloor, a world he knows well. “ParisBsas” is festival-ready, playful and euphoric yet rendered with precision. Tribal drums, rippling synths, and the classic Amen break weave joy from exhaustion, while Skrillex-esque squelches add knowing grit. One might’ve expected a similar banger from “Goze,” which features raptor-house progenitor DJ Babatr, whose game-changing recreation of barrio music makes him a spiritual forefather to Da Silva. (The two have remixed each other’s work, but never before collaborated.) An acid rave track, “Goze” teases with a massive build-up like clicking to the top of a rollercoaster, but the payoff is muted. A masterfully looped vocal gives us something to work with, but the track never quite takes off. These two artists have electrified crowds in dozens of cities; it’s hard to picture any of them going crazy for this track. Yet as a closer, it mirrors the intro’s watery sensuality—anticlimactic by design, forcing us to reconsider what we expect from dance music itself.

On every track, the production feels rounded, deliberate, and breathable. Da Silva governs discerningly, more fascinated by layering and refinement than by the drop. It’s music for being locked in at the club, catching subtle gradients of rhythmic shift in your body—the slow swivel of a hip, the flicker of a glance. But that subtlety, paired with the hyper-genre mash, can sound monotonous on headphones: a bit like when you mix all the colors and end up with brown.

Still, Retrospective Frequencies is a warm, freaky introduction to Da Silva’s craft, which has only strengthened with each fast-clip release. Framed as the end of one chapter and the beginning of another, the record recaps EL PLVYBXY’s origins in the guaracha- and raptor-infused sounds of South American raves. Yet it only hints at where he’s headed next: atmospheric music for the ambient room? Producing action movie soundtracks? It’s a sign of maturity and versatility that so many directions are open to him—and a reminder that his greatest strength has long been a refusal to play by the rules.