Federación de Universos Pop, Spain ****
Rating: 84
By Carlos Reyes
Anti is the pseudonym of pop visionary Tito Pintado, a guy who has been around the industry for a while and who finally seems to find a receptive audience to consume his highly compound music. Antiaventura nourishes from the most insignificant things out there; it rolls around abandoned topics and distant compositions to command its instincts as a functional box of melodic experience. Hence the title, this is not your typical electropop album and definitely not a sonic adventure. It’s a collection of seductive episodes about love and despair (surprisingly not depressing). Fortunately, it’s generous to the adult ear, compassionate perhaps, on the verge of detonating light through its twelve pieces one can’t help but dance to.
Anti is teeming with ethereal pop and handling it with a precise scope that allows it to be right at the middle of the minimal pixel-driven tempo of Antiguo Automata Mexicano and the cheerful fury-driven timing of Friendly Fires. Assimilates space and tonal variations like very few albums this year. “Corazones Legendarios” is a shining indispensable marvel from start to finish. Unorthodox as any track from The Dirty Projectors’s Bitte Orca, the song is a grandiose statement of affiliation, either musically or by the heart. Collaborating with beautiful vocals is Teresa Iturrioz, one half of Single (the band) and who has great chemistry with Anti since he does the backup vocals at Single’s live shows. Anti’s voice isn’t necessarily great but he sure knows how to melt it to evoke/manipulate an emotion.
It’s strange but despite the reflective spirit, the album does profile a modern composer whose biggest strength are musical passages as proven in songs like “Festival” and “Diamantes”, if you like Nuuro’s All Clear & The Reddest Ruby you’ll get blown away by Anti’s creations. I’m especially excited about the references that may have influenced a track like “Iceberg”, particularly that rise and fall that makes this piece so special. “El Mago” has more of a structure, by far the only classicist track in the album, reminds me of the pre-Almodovar Spanish cinema. “Lovers Rock” is probably my favorite song, it’s soulful, it’s reggae, it really doesn’t know what it is except that it aspires to be some kind of eternal dream, pretentious but it does it! in chunks, what a charm!
Antiaventura isn’t as accessible as “Corazones Legendarios”, it’s takes a processes to even assimilate its climax. There are tracks surrounded by apparently thick layers, but if you approach them right (use headphones) you’ll burst in surprise on how outstanding these pieces really are. Like discovering the charm in melismatic tracks like “Los Colores de tu Mente” and “Las Maquinas.” While other tracks like “Eligeme” and “Hollywod Babilonia” are weekend-ready in their very own delirious way. By far one of the most convincing and strangest forms of pop I’ve encountered this year, it’s a rotating spectrum in search of grey souls.