by Carolina Simionato (@smntcarolina)
With half of its four tracks being remixes from 2019’s De Facto — and the other two sounding like they actually were on it — Lorelle Meets The Obsolete’s (Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto González) Re-Facto, released in 2020, was intended as a companion piece EP to the former.
CC Crain’s (Cooper Crain from Cave and Bitchin Bajas) “Lux, Lumina” remix still bears large resemblance to the original, if it had been taken down a glitchy bad trip, that is— and I mean that as high praise. It takes the original’s upbeat move-your-body feeling to an “am I being followed but also am I in the reverb-matrix?” level of inviting tension. “Unificado” on Pye Corner Audio’s hands, on the other hand, with a much crispier mix of the vocals, is what I imagine Lorelle Meets The Obsolete would sound like on an ambient-influenced stint, slowly building a synth-backed different kind of tension all the way through, that is then nonchalantly resolved.
The remixes being a more obvious connection, the two previously unreleased songs, “Fosas Limitadas” and “El Olivo,” drive home the point that De Facto and Re-Facto are independent sisters who are even better together. Sure they deserve their own separate homes and praise, but they’ll hopefully grow old on the same plot of land. “Fosas Limitadas” is as vibrant and noise-led as they are at their best, with surprising dreaminess through the fog where psychedelic meets dreamy shoegaze, while “El Olivo”, based on an actual dream Quintanilla had about an olive tree, flips the formula to be spellbindingly dreamy with a portion of noise.
If you weren’t a fan before, you’ve arrived with great timing. De Facto is next-level Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, where they arrive at the referential sound in which they nevertheless sound like no one else. Short and sweet, Re-Facto reminds us of that and tells us they’ll keep at it.