Nazar - Demilitarize [Hyperdub]

Demilitarize | Nazar out April 25th.

Nazar’s second album, Demilitarize follows his remarkable 2020 debut Guerrilla, which was released just as Covid started to lock down the world. That first album reprocessed kuduro music from Angola with rough textures, field recordings and media clips, re-telling Nazar's personal story of the civil war that exiled his family in Europe, while his father, a rebel General, fought a losing battle in the jungle back home.

After Guerrilla, and in the early throes of a new and important romance, Nazar was hit by Covid and with a weakened immune system, the latent tuberculosis he'd incubated while living in Angola, took over his body and left him seriously ill for a year. Reckoning with mortality and the flowering of new love are the two things that motivated this album, turning the ‘rough kuduro’ of Guerrilla inside out.

Like his debut, this is a deep sound world, but in contrast to its grit and realness, Demilitarize is genuinely dreamy. The arc of the album describes shedding the armour of trauma and surrendering to this new situation. A constant and unexpected aspect of Demilitarize is Nazar's gentle, submerged vocal. Insistent and mantra-like, it’s like a cross between Elisabeth Frazer, Arthur Russell and Frank Ocean, and the music is fragile and opaque in response.

Nazar says - 'With the album being introspective, I didn't seek to capture sounds from real places to enhance it’s universe like on Guerilla. I wanted to make it almost metaphysical like creating sci-fi, with classic cyberpunk anime ‘Ghost In The Shell’ being a core inspiration.' The rhythms of kuduro are still here, but move around his voice like fish around a swimmer. The precise sound design on Demilitarize illuminates from different angles. Chords spiral, ripple and shoot through the beats giving tracks the loosest of settings. Songs disassemble and vocals float off-centre.

Demilitarize insists you zoom in, listen closely, tune into Nazar's rare vibration. Let it overwhelm you, while paying close attention. 

This dude's last album was awesome, hope this one will be too.

This record is getting mega hyped already from a couple of places that have already heard it. I have to say I really liked Guerilla and had it on rotation quite a lot when it came out, but it never really had the staying power of something like, say, DJ Python's Mas Amable which came out around the same time. Possibly cause its a bit of a spiky, difficult record, the subject matter is rough, the sound palette is kind of ugly and dirty. I don't yearn to hear it a whole lot. By the sound of it this one's a bit more introspective and love'd up so maybe it's got that going for it. Either way i'm curious to hear it.

feel like hyberdub thinks they will always find the next huge artist. above track is ok - vocals take away from it but the beats are sick.

  On 2/19/2025 at 8:59 PM, Key said:

This record is getting mega hyped already from a couple of places that have already heard it. I have to say I really liked Guerilla and had it on rotation quite a lot when it came out, but it never really had the staying power of something like, say, DJ Python's Mas Amable which came out around the same time. Possibly cause its a bit of a spiky, difficult record, the subject matter is rough, the sound palette is kind of ugly and dirty. I don't yearn to hear it a whole lot. By the sound of it this one's a bit more introspective and love'd up so maybe it's got that going for it. Either way i'm curious to hear it.

True, it's a great record but it's one that you put on maybe once a year or something. It was so well executed though. What places have already heard it?

  On 2/20/2025 at 3:19 AM, species8472 said:

feel like hyberdub thinks they will always find the next huge artist. above track is ok - vocals take away from it but the beats are sick.

Nahh I don't feel like that at all. Guerilla is a very original record with a distinct sound, at the time I thought it was really something fresh. Hyperdub's blurbs have nowhere near the cringe-factor that other record labels do, I always feel like they are actually reasonably down to earth.

  On 2/20/2025 at 8:28 AM, thumbass said:

True, it's a great record but it's one that you put on maybe once a year or something. It was so well executed though. What places have already heard it?

Boomkat for instance are saying its on par with Burial's Untrue (but then again they are notorious for their hyperbole)

  On 2/20/2025 at 10:37 AM, Key said:

Boomkat for instance are saying its on par with Burial's Untrue (but then again they are notorious for their hyperbole)

Holy shit that Boomkat review makes it look like the album of the decade. Apart from the usual cringe inducing writing it sounds like a promising release. Verrrrrry curious and eager to hear the rest.