The Dominican producer mediopicky often comes up with songs so wildly experimental, they can feel like they’re being piped in from the future. That’s the case on his latest album el precio de la yuca , an album structured like a radio show taking place 80 years from now, capturing sounds ahead of their time. The format lets mediopicky — whose real name is Pablo Alcántara — roll out all his thoughts and anxieties about the present day, but more importantly, it’s a showcase of the audacious, almost unhinged ideas that have made him one of the most exciting upcoming producers in Latin music.
What exactly do those ideas sound like? They’re all over “Negro Frutal,” a hypersonic merengue track with a galloping rhythm that eventually slams into distorted, metal-influenced production. There’s the insanely catchy simplicity of “ya ya yo no no,” a skittering, R&B-tinged goodbye to an old relationship, delivered with the apathy of someone who truly doesn’t care if you live or die. And it’s hard not to keep revisiting the title track, which blends a seesawing cumbia beat with fuzzed-out guitars inspired by System of a Down.
(“I want ‘Chop Suey’ to play at my funeral,” Alcántara laughs. “System of a Down, Slipknot, Pain, those were some of the first bands I got into.”) The unexpected juxtapositions are what make the album so thrilling.
“This album was really complicated, but in the end, it was like putting a really fun Frankenstein monster toget.