Quelza – Pensa Poetico EP album review
Both of last year’s releases from Quelza, the nom de Producer of Berlin’s Léo Naïtaïssa, were startling austere even by Techno standards. The Origami EP is full of ball bearing breakbeats and clinical modular synth bleeps, like a rave in a semiconductor manufacturing plant, while La Danse De L’Albatros zips along like a Spectre in a wormhole. Both still show off Quelza’s knack for layering, arrangement, and sound design but they’re clean to the point of becoming minimal techno. While still sporting the same immaculate sound design and imaginative arrangements as his older work, Pensa Poetica comes across as much more atmospheric and introspective – more head trip than banger. It’s an endlessly fascinating listening, full of surprising twists and turns, making Pensa Poetico one of the most addictive electronic EPs of the year.
The Pensa Poetico EP starts right off with a showstopper. “Pensa Poetica” is nearly 11 minutes of breakbeat bricolage and sci-fi sound design with no trace of a pop EDM structure. There are no predictable structures, no builds or breakdowns. Instead, “Pensa Poetico” seems to follow its own internal logic, like weather patterns drifting across an unnamed cerulean planet – sterling breakbeats stripped down into base elements, rippling beneath ocean currents and clouds of fluorescent gasses. It’s an incredible, ambitious work, full of non-sequiturs and free associations, more like a waking dream than DJ fodder, making “Pensa Poetico” one of the more fascinating techno tracks of 2025.
The rest of the Pensa Poetico EP is slightly less ambitious and more conventional while still sounding immaculate and imaginative. “A Bird With Burned Fingers” is 7 minutes of hypnotic jungle riddims and a single mysterious synth line, repeating like some prophetic constellation.
“Orange Du Ciel” is almost straightahead techno, with the skeleton of a four-to-the-floor beat that’s gradually joined by the specter of an Autechre beat and a synthetic sci-fi post-dubstep sheen. There’s even the hint of a breakdown if a DJ has nerves of steel.
Finally, “Belly Jolie Movements” sounds like a halfstep track getting down and dirty with an industrial techno beat inside a Fax machine while a drum circle bashes on, oblivious.
Quelza’s Pensa Poetico EP is the latest example of imaginative, freeform dance music that’s as much about the imagination as body rockin’. This trend, which hasn’t been codified with a name yet that i’ve noticed, is proving to be a much-needed shot of vitamins for electronic music, which languished in formulaic mediocrity for a time due to a proliferation of imitators with nothing of real interest or import to say. These gauzy, gossamer electronic albums, with their abstract beats, sci-fi electronics and worldbuilding sound design, are a very good sign of things to come. I’m fascinated to see what’s going to come of it all!
Penso Poetico EP is out now on Dekmantel Records.
Quelza – Penso Poetico EP DJ Guide
- Pensa Poetico 10:58 Bb Minor/138 BPM
- A Bird With Burned Wings 6:37 Eb Minor/139 BPM
- Orange Du Ciel 7:38 G Minor/136 BPM
- BellyJolie Movements 6:31 Bb Minor/138 BPM
A prolific academic writer, journalist, and cultural critic, J. Simpson idealistically believes that Great Art makes the better place to live. Obsessed with all things “dark,” experimental, and avant-garde, he believes there’s more to life than chasing the bottom line. He is the author of Forestpunk, a website investigating the intersection of horror, music, and spirituality, as well as the Hauntology Now! substack. He also makes music and DJs as dessicant.
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