Sega Bodega at Band on the Wall
Johnny James, Managing Editor
In support of his excellent third album Dennis, Sega Bodega brings his dislocated pop and surreal electronica to Band on the Wall this November.
Born in Ireland, raised in Glasgow and now based in London, Salvador Navarrete AKA Sega Bodega has built a reputation as one of the most precocious minds on the UK’s electronic scene. In the last few years he’s produced for everyone from Björk to Rosalía, soundtracked huge cultural moments including Rihanna’s Puma x Fenty show at New York Fashion Week, and launched two record labels – all while creating a stunning catalogue of solo releases.
Cutting through the chaos of early 2020, Bodega’s debut album Salvador saw the artist cast himself somewhere between club producer and pop star, pitting swirling emotional turmoil against experimental and hard-hitting productions. Fans of Arca (who features on the record) and Oneohtrix Point Never will love this trippy descent into Sega Bodega’s dark side, while 2021’s Romeo steps towards the light, folding garage, trance and glitch into a set of off-kilter love songs.
His latest album, Dennis, is a different, otherworldly beast. It arrived following turbulence in Bodega’s personal life – a period of mania that manifested itself in spikes of euphoria, sleepless nights and surrender to impulse. According to the artist, the difference between reality and this mind-altered state felt paper-thin, and the album is a translation of this experience.
Dennis indeed sounds like its beamed from some liminal space between realities, following a dreamlike logic that guides you down the rabbit hole of Bodega’s subconscious. Skirting the edges of cinematic folk, indie rock and hyperpop, the instrumentals pit the synthetic against the acoustic, the antiquated against the futuristic, so that the record feels untethered to one time and space.
Bodega’s voice, often pitched up and distorted, is pushed further forward than on his other records, creeping through the billowing mist of the productions with lyrics about everything from 7,000 year-old burials to musings on what it might be like to be liquified in a blender. It’s fantastical stuff, but works in the context of a record that that documents an unmooring from reality.
From ‘Elk Skin’ to ‘Dirt’, dark floor fillers take up half of the record, finding Bodega in pursuit of pleasure amid the psychological fracture, while quieter tracks like ‘Set Me Free, I’m An Animal’ plumb the depths of the fracture itself, extending a feeling of being lost, or trapped in a situation that’s beyond control, searching for intimacy and connection. And isn’t this precisely what music, and particularly intimate live shows, are all about? Finding a point of connection? Hence there’s no better place to hear a record like this than at a venue like Band on the Wall.
Bodega doesn’t play in the UK much; it’s been five years since he performed in Manchester. If you’re into his music, don’t sleep on this one.
