Act surprised if you want to, but there’s no denying some of the hardest-hitting, most innovative club music right now is being made in South America. And while it’s been at least five years since reguetón beats became a staple of stateside producers, artists in Spain, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Brazil manage to stay one step ahead by twisting their sounds to further incorporate recent pop detritus and increasingly complex experimental aspirations. Defensa, a Buenos Aires crew with one feet in electronic exploration and the other in what could still be called art-pop in 2017, is one of the finest examples of this.
The Argentine three-piece released an EP of ominous ambient pop last year, and are set to launch their full-length debut in the upcoming months. In the meantime, Defensa have shared with us an exclusive new track, “What You Know,” which they describe as a mixture of gritty early-2000s hip hop and Mad Max’s soundtrack. Listen to “What you know” below, and witness Defensa evolve from trap-loving children of Dios into a nocturnal beast all of its own.