Cardopusher

Throughout an extensive output spanning multiple forms of electronic dance music, Venezuelan producer Cardopusher has fused Latin American elements with ferocious idioms such as breakcore and EBM while also engaging more mainstream club styles including house and garage. Sample-driven mashcore efforts such as the 2006 album Hippie Killers Don't Mind Jah Conversations first brought him notice, after which he gravitated toward dubstep and broken beat before delivering the 2011 full-length Yr Fifteen Minutes Are Up. Analog synthesizers became central on outings like the 2017 album New Cult Fear, which evoked the early days of acid house and electro. Throughout the 2020s he explored deconstructed reggaeton under the Safety Trance moniker and merged breakcore with hard trance on the 2023 Cardopusher EP Immaculate Poison.

Born Luis Garbàn in Caracas, he began by crafting material influenced by IDM imprints including Planet Mu and Rephlex; by roughly 2005 his productions had drawn interest from the breakcore scene, among them DJs and producers Jason Forrest and DJ/rupture, thanks to rapid-fire beat manipulation and unexpected, playful sampling. Alongside the usual chopped Amen breaks and ragga vocals, his pieces drew from less conventional wells such as reggaeton and ’90s alternative-rock radio hits by Collective Soul and 311. Following a handful of digital compilation appearances, French artist Rotator began issuing Garbàn’s tracks on the Peace Off Records label in 2006. Cardopusher’s debut full-length, Hippie Killers Don't Mind Jah Conversations, surfaced early that year and was soon succeeded by a split EP alongside Rotator and Krumble as well as further compilation contributions. Two 2007 EPs—I Need Someone I Can Imitate on Wood Records and Red Red Blood on the Peace Off sublabel Damage—extended the absurdist, sample-devouring approach heard on the album.

In 2008 Garbàn relocated to Barcelona and began folding dubstep textures into his palette. Releases including Down to the Wire on Terminal Dusk and Mutant Dubstep, Vol. 2 on Spectraliquid combined his frenetic breakbeats and samples with reduced tempos and heavy sub-bass, while his second album, Unity Means Power on Murder Channel, consisted primarily of breakcore cuts interspersed with several hybrid tracks. A remix of the Cardopusher track “Homeless” appeared on a Hyperdub 12" by Japanese chiptune/dubstep artist Quarta 330. German imprint Ad Noiseam put out a condensed vinyl edition of Unity Means Power in 2009, and further material surfaced on labels such as Off Road Recordings, Shockout, and True Tiger Recordings. Around 2010 his direction softened, embracing U.K. garage-inflected sounds on EPs such as Schematic Blocks on On the Edge and 2011’s Instant Loving on Frijsfo Beats. The third album, Yr Fifteen Minutes Are Up, emerged on Kid606’s Tigerbeat6 imprint and featured guest spots from MCs Sensational and Juakali.

In 2012 Garbàn and Argentinian producer Nehuen founded the label Classicworks, which issued mostly digital EPs along with the occasional 12". By this stage Cardopusher’s productions drew heavily from classic electro and acid house, characterized by burbling synth lines and pounding drum-machine patterns. Boys Noize included several of Garbàn’s tracks on the BNR Trax imprint, and the fourth album, Manipulator, which introduced an EBM dimension, appeared on Boysnoize Records in 2015. Garbàn continued releasing digital material via Classicworks in addition to 12" outings on THEM and Super Rhythm Trax. New Cult Fear, Cardopusher’s second album for Boysnoize, arrived in 2017.

The EP Muscle Memory came out on Dark Entries in 2018, while two volumes of A Convenient Excuse were released by Boysnoize. Additional EPs followed on imprints such as Acid Avengers and Lone Romantic. Garbàn appeared on Arca’s Kick projects and adopted the Safety Trance alias to concentrate on reggaeton. Arca contributed to the 2022 Safety Trance single “El Alma Que Te Trajo.” Cardopusher issued Immaculate Poison on John Frusciante’s Evar Records in 2023; the EP revived the elevated BPMs of his earlier work while incorporating hard trance components.