Languis

Since their school days as classmates in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Marcos Chloca and Alejandro Cohen have operated as the duo Languis, a partnership that dates back to 1991. After parting with their guitars and amplifiers in 1996, the pair relocated to Los Angeles, where they sometimes join forces with musicians tied to the city’s experimental, underground lo-fi electronic scene, a network that revolves in part around the Internet hub dublab.com. Their recordings can evoke the gentler, less propulsive side of Stereolab or the post-ambient European approach heard in To Rococo Rot and Tarwater, yet Languis refuses to settle inside any single category, occupying instead a relaxed corner of post-rock electronics that stops just short of laptop techno-noir. The duo combines analog and digital synthesizers, assorted organs, samplers, sequencers, signal processors, abstract electronic percussion, and mostly acoustic guitars, while employing vocals that range from heavily treated, vocoder-treated lines to murmured fragments captured through a telephone receiver, all deployed in a distinctive, organically futuristic manner.

Their debut proper album, Simball Sounds, was captured on a borrowed four-track machine inside the duo’s home studio and appeared on the Los Angeles imprint Simball Sounds Recordings in August 1998. The follow-up, Last Frequency Presets, surfaced in spring 1999. A limited-edition 7-inch titled “Soft Music,” released in February 2000, presented three instrumentals rooted in sound-collage aesthetics and built from atmospherics, loops, acoustic guitar, and static rhythms. In November 2000 the group issued Unithematic, a set that leaned toward melodic, song-oriented material and featured greater use of vocals, acoustic guitars, and pianos. The boldly exploratory split 10-inch “Parallel to the Atmospheric Sound of Silence,” shared with Safety Scissors and issued on Plug Research, incorporated layers of hiss, noise, peaks, distortion, static, clicks, and pops reminiscent of Stefan Betke’s work as Pole, processed through a Waldorf 4 Pole-Filter; Blevin Blectum of Blectum From Blechdom added vocals to the recording. The hectic yet lush album Untied arrived in 2002. Beyond their own Simball releases, Languis has contributed to projects and compilations on Phthalo Records, Tigerbeat6, Ubiquity Records, and Zealrecords.