überlin

Venezuelan transgender diva Aérea Negrot first appeared as a guest vocalist on Hercules and the Love Affair’s last album, Blue Songs, before finding her home at Berlin’s bpitch control. Her incorporation of abstract vocals into hypnotic minimal owes much to label head Ellen Allien and sometime collaborator Miss Kittin, but Negrot has an identity all of her own, musically, visually, and, well, sexually. Gender politics are not our forté, but it’s pretty obvious what she’s referring to 11 minutes into the below live set (recorded at Watergate) when she starts chanting, “This is not the wrong body”.

Debut album Arabxilla (out on September 19th) folds techno, abstract electronica, piano house and opera into a heady, hedonistic mix – think Nôze meets Grace Jones in a Berghain bathroom. Our highlight is a German-language lounge song called “Berlin”, which we can’t wait to drop into a self-indulgent themed DJ set, but for now you’ll have to settle for an exclusive track, “Love You From The Brain”, streaming at the bottom of this post.

“Love You From The Brain” (click through to download):

This article originally appeared on Bang Bang Berlin.