Tufi – Rituales: Club Mutations from a Diasporic Frequency
Argentinian producer Tufi channels displacement, sonic lineage, and future-club volatility into a hybrid EP that maps the emotional cartography of making music between Buenos Aires and Berlin.
ENG:
Rituales lands as a snapshot of Tufi’s current mutation point—a moment where diasporic listening, South American memory, and Berlin’s fractured club machinery fold into each other. It’s an EP shaped by drift: between continents, between micro-scenes, between the volatility of the under and the persistence of an artistic pulse that insists on re-rooting itself under unstable ground.
Across four tracks, Tufi stitches recorded samples, online detritus, and heavy processing chains into hybrid rhythmic bodies—liminal creatures built from cumbia ghosts, Jersey stabs, rave chants, and the afterimages of kuduro, grime, and hyperpop. But beneath the surface aesthetics, there’s something deeper: the instinctive act of bringing one’s own sonic marks into foreign soil, a reflex of identity that operates almost unconsciously.
He describes this as something that happens “naturally”—a pull to infuse his music with South American and Caribbean gestures even when immersed in Berlin’s shifting trends. His previous EP Arraigo explored this tension, but Rituales expands the field: not as a manifesto of Latin futurism, but as an intuitive practice of sonic differentiation in a city where scenes morph rapidly and the under is currently under cultural stress. “I still feel like I’m fighting for a place in the local circuit,” he says, noting that much of his performance practice this year happened in self-organized spaces.
The opening cut, “Fuera de Serie,” spirals in 3/4 time—a syncopated hinge between cumbia cadence and murga elasticity. “Accioné” begins as UKG but mutates, absorbing kuduro voltage, grime tension, and a hyperpop gleam. “Retruco,” featuring Cimarrón, hits with Jersey Club angles and dubstep pressure, while “Up the Mont” (with DELLA) is a rave-forward burst shaped through spontaneous, communal studio sessions.
What anchors the EP is Tufi’s connection to Argentina’s experimental club lineage—a scene he still observes closely. He points to artists like Bungalovv, Aguja, Gregorio Nash, CANDIE, Jaijiu, and labels like Rebote, Volquete, and kioskera as forces keeping the sonic field strange and off-center, resisting the homogenization produced by global trend cycles.
Looking forward, he sees two parallel lines in his own practice: an improvisational, open-ended side that escapes fixed identity, and another that leans directly into rhythm-driven club architecture. Both reflect his sense that Latin America remains ahead of the curve in global terms: “What is happening now in many places, we’ve lived through for decades. The resilience becomes part of the art.”
Rituales captures that resilience not as a slogan, but as a workflow: unstable, migratory, affectively charged, and deeply collaborative. A club record made in motion—between cities, between crises, between signals.
ESP:
Rituales aparece como una instantánea del punto de mutación en el que se encuentra Tufi: un cruce entre escucha diaspórica, memoria sudamericana y la maquinaria club fracturada de Berlín. Es un EP moldeado por el desplazamiento—entre continentes, escenas y la inestabilidad cultural del under—donde cada track intenta re-enraizarse en suelo movedizo.
A lo largo de los cuatro cortes, Tufi une samples grabados, restos digitales y cadenas de procesamiento pesadas para formar cuerpos rítmicos híbridos—criaturas liminales hechas de fantasmas de cumbia, stabs de Jersey, cantos de rave y ecos de kuduro, grime e hyperpop. Pero bajo esa superficie, opera algo más íntimo: el gesto casi involuntario de insertar marcas identitarias propias dentro de un territorio ajeno.
Tufi lo describe como algo que simplemente ocurre, un impulso por teñir la música con gestos sudamericanos incluso cuando está sumergido en las tendencias cambiantes de Berlín. Si Arraigo exploraba esa fricción, Rituales la amplifica, no como una declaración latino-futurista sino como práctica intuitiva de diferenciarse en un ecosistema donde todo se vuelve tendencia demasiado rápido.
“Todavía siento que estoy peleando por un lugar en la escena local”, dice, recordando que este año mayormente tocó en eventos auto-gestionados, en medio de una crisis cultural del under berlinés.
La apertura, “Fuera de Serie,” se mueve en 3/4, entre la cadencia cumbiera y la elasticidad de la murga. “Accioné” nace como UKG pero muta hacia kuduro, grime e hyperpop. “Retruco,” junto a Cimarrón, afila ángulos de Jersey Club con presión dubstep. “Up the Mont,” con DELLA, estalla en clave rave, fruto de sesiones espontáneas y colaborativas.
Su vínculo con la escena argentina más experimental sigue siendo central: observa desde la distancia a artistas como Bungalovv, Aguja, Gregorio Nash, CANDIE, Jaijiu, y sellos como Rebote, Volquete y kioskera, que mantienen viva la rareza frente a la homogeneización global.
En términos creativos, Tufi identifica dos líneas que quiere seguir explorando: una más improvisada, de identidad abierta y no codificada; y otra plenamente orientada al club. Ambas encajan con su intuición de que América Latina sigue adelantada en ciclos estéticos y culturales: “Lo que pasa ahora en muchas partes del mundo, nosotros lo vivimos desde siempre. La resiliencia se vuelve parte del arte.”
Rituales condensa esa resiliencia en forma de proceso: inestable, migratorio, afectivo y profundamente colaborativo. Un disco de club hecho en movimiento—entre ciudades, crisis y señales.
