El Guincho

Born Pablo Díaz-Reixa on the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago situated off the northwestern African coast, El Guincho gained early attention from indie blogs in the first months of 2008, right after Alegranza appeared the previous December and aligned with his initial North American show in Austin, Texas, during SXSW. At fourteen he departed his birthplace for Continental Europe intent on pursuing athletics, yet that path stalled, prompting a relocation to Barcelona where he took up drumming across several groups, among them Coconut alongside his cousin on guitar. During a 2006 Coconut tour the concept for El Guincho crystallized: merging favorite tropicalia and calypso samples with live percussion and his own singing. Alegranza drew immediate parallels to Panda Bear’s Person Pitch, securing El Guincho prominent slots at SXSW and the Pitchfork Music Festival plus widespread critical praise. His follow-up, Pop Negro, took shape at Berlin’s Planet Roc and assorted Spanish sites before its September 2010 release.

In the ensuing years Díaz-Reixa concentrated on production work, helming Delirio Específico for Extraperlo and Una Montaña Es Una Montaña for Los Punsetes in 2012 while also delivering a remix of Björk’s “Cosmogony.” He returned in 2014 under the Trances moniker with an EP of sample-driven tribal techno issued on John Talabot’s Hivern Discs. Reclaiming the El Guincho identity in 2016, he issued Hiperasia, a percolating electro-R&B and pop set shaped by his interest in a cluster of Chinese bazaars lining a Madrid thoroughfare.