Text by Dom Stevenson
The next mixtape instalment comes from Barcelona-based artist Roc Jiménez de Cisneros – one half of EVOL, the long-running project with Stephen Sharp – ahead of a late-night set at the upcoming bank holiday gathering, Sunday School VI: Noctifer.
Across decades, EVOL have stripped rave down to its core mechanics – rhythm, repetition, synthesis – only to reassemble them as unstable, recursive forms. Their work treats dance music less as a genre than as a system: something to be reduced, stressed, and reconfigured.
Extending this logic through solo and parallel projects, Jiménez de Cisneros operates across a dispersed network of releases where structures hold, but never quite settle. Minimal arrangements generate overwhelming density; familiar gestures return warped, slightly out of alignment.
Ahead of his April 5th appearance at Low Profile Studios in Manor House, this mix pushes into the hyper-processed edges of contemporary club music – where kicks mutate into force fields and maximal impact emerges from minimal means.
Your practice has often been described as an aesthetic investigation into algorithmic composition and a deconstruction of rave culture. Where do your interests lie at the moment? What areas of sonic research or exploration are currently shaping your work?
I’m currently (still) working on my Makina Trax stuff, which is technically outside of EVOL, even if it’s clearly connected to many things Stephen and I have done together. But I don’t even pay attention to màkina as a genre all that much, or at all. I mostly listen to very niche death metal and goregrind, which probably also has an impact on the types of structures I try to make in my tracks. My son listens to lots of drill, so I guess I end up paying attention to that too. But I’d say my stuff is equally shaped by things like films, comics, and board games, which have more to do with how I think about visual logic, mechanics, and narrative rules.
I’ve always found both editions of Wabbit Trax – your paired releases on Diagonal – particularly striking. They carry a sense of vibrancy while adhering to a stark, almost rule-based minimalism. Could you speak about how those records came together and how they sit within the wider EVOL catalogue?
It’s been a while, so it’s hard to remember exactly how they came together, but like most of our records, it started with an idea and a process of peeling away layers until we arrived at that. A lot of people have said the tracks sound cartoon-like, which I can see, even though the pieces themselves are quite static, and in many ways, nothing really happens.
I like to see the wider EVOL catalogue as a kind of interconnected multiverse. Kind of like Stephen King’s novels, where recurring characters, shared locations, and recurring themes quietly link everything together. Even when records feel self-contained, they exist in relation to each other. Or they depend on each other. It’s easy to connect Wabbit Trax to Right Frankfurt, Goofy Tape and so on, but it also relates to releases that seem super distant in terms of sound. Even when work feels worlds apart, there’s a shared logic and approach.
Rave culture has undergone significant shifts in recent years, both aesthetically and socially. Does its ongoing evolution still engage you? Have you found new perspectives within these changes that feel relevant to your current practice?
Social media has basically turned “rave” into another word for “clubbing,” and all the distinctions that used to matter have kind of dissolved. So a lot of what gets called a rave now fits pretty neatly into increasingly corporate club environments. I’m way more interested in some mutations of the original rave ethos that emerge outside those circuits. One that feels especially meaningful to me is the Indian sound system culture, where people gather in rural fields around extremely powerful rigs. It’s not necessarily about dancing in a conventional sense; it’s more about getting blasted by really intense music coming out of massive speaker arrays. Also, musically, it’s completely removed from what we understand as dance music in the West, yet it sometimes collides with it in unexpected ways. A lot of what gets played at these gatherings is strangely close to very stripped-down forms of techno, but I don’t think this necessarily comes from borrowing our lineage. It probably has more in common with the vast musical ecosystem of India itself.
Tell us about the mix you’ve prepared for us in the context of your performance at Sunday School. How did you approach the selection, and what impulses, references, or constraints informed it?
The mix is a selection of fun tracks from the uptempo/zaag scene of the last few years. I don’t really follow that world that closely, but it’s produced some of the most imaginative sound design in a long time, where kicks have evolved into this strange, saturated force field that almost behaves like a bassline. These producers are at the forefront of synthesis right now, even if they’re probably dismissed or ignored in more serious circles. I like how that scene doesn’t seem too concerned with refinement. They borrow heavily from pop melodies and embrace excess in a very unapologetic way, which I find refreshing.
There’s often a compelling tension in your work between reduction and excess – between minimal gesture and overwhelming density. Does this mix lean toward one of these poles, or is it conceived as a negotiation between them?
I guess it sits somewhere in between. A lot of these tracks are super reduced in terms of elements, but the sound itself is so dense that it feels overwhelming. So reduction and excess end up happening simultaneously. It’s minimal in arrangement but maximal in physical impact, which is indeed a recipe I’m attracted to. Especially how the two can collapse into each other, where the most minimal gesture can also feel the most overwhelming.
Across your projects – spanning live performance, installation, publishing, and research – there is a sustained engagement with systems, codes, patterns, and cultural residues. In what ways do these underlying structures manifest within this mix?
Deformation is probably as central to my work as my engagement with systems, codes, patterns, or cultural residues. I’m drawn to small disruptions inside functional structures, things that are technically still working, but slightly off. I take a lot of photos of accidental distortions in everyday design: traffic lines painted over a manhole that later gets rotated so the markings no longer align, or tiled walls where one piece has been set 90 degrees out of place. Small screwups that make the whole surface tense, even if it still performs its function. Or, to bring it back to cartoons: there’s a subreddit I love called LooneyTunesLogic that’s all about silly accidents, where physics, design, or social rules bend in ways that feel absurd, and strangely Looney Tunes-like. That kind of deformation is interesting too. And I guess this mix and most of what I do is related to that, in a way.
In October 2025, you released a set of early recordings from 1995, made using a Korg KPR-77 and recorded directly to DAT. What was it like to revisit that material? Did it feel like encountering a distant version of yourself, or has that sonic language remained present in your work over time?
I decided to release it partly because it was 30 years old, and it’s my very first recording, so there’s an emotional attachment. But it also felt like it made sense aesthetically. It connects, at least tangentially, to things I’ve been doing in recent years. I wouldn’t say those early ideas have persisted in my work over time because that’d be a bit pretentious of me, but there’s a certain resonance. Back then, I only had that drum machine, so the recordings sound raw and minimal. Over the years, Stephen and I have done a lot of solo drum machine pieces too, but those came from choice rather than constraint, which is very different.
Finally – a recurring question, perhaps – how do you navigate or resist technological overload within your practice?
I don’t think I resist it as much as I should.
Tracklist:
Bloodlust – Smash Your Brain (Eclipse Uptempo Kick Edit – EXTENDED MIX)
Das Ist Kein Techno (Tegula x Kienyooo Extended Edit)
Paranoid – Deluzion & Iris Goes (luvvtige Extended Edit)
Spitnoise & N-Vitral presents BOMBSQUAD – HYPER (Snax x Random Edit)
Dimitri K & Act Of Madness – Stop De Boot (Inswennity RE-FIX EXTENDED)
Brutal Theory – BKJN Vs Partyraiser Tool (2022 Extended)
Dr. Peacock & Partyraiser – Trip To Holland (Spectral Edit)
Lil Texas – ACAB
E-Force X Dimitri K – SEVEN (The Freaky Bastard MSHP)
Dimitri K – Bomba (Atomic Kick Edit)
Rebelion, Dimitri K and The Dark Horror – Side FX (JUDAX X CRAZYKILL X REFOX BOOTLEG)
EQUAL2 x Chaotic Brotherz – Polizei
CL – SPICY (Brutal Theory & Brain Hammer Remix)
Cosy Nghtmre & Pinotello – Get Loose
CORPSE, Scarlxrd, Kordhell – MISA MISA! (Zeiqo Edit) (Extended)
Bulletproof & S-Kill – I’m feeling good and want to Party! (Bootleg)
Brutal Theory – Pitbull Terrier
Lil Texas – Double Bassdrum (EQUAL2 Edit)
Slaughthouse – DON’T SLEEP (Sh1nigami x ALBINO edit)
Criminal Tempo – Don Uptempo (Extended Mix)
The Prophet vs Dimitri K – Wanna Play Seven (Conspirator Uptempo Mashup)
R3T3P – Carol of The Bell
Black Stylerz – Pokemon Theme Song (MIR UPTEMPO EDIT)
Cyber Gunz – Harder Kan Toch Niet (ft. Serra)
Chaoticbrotherz & Equal2 – Drop It
Dimitri K – Firestorm
F. Noize – SpongeBomb (GNG Edit)
DRS – Pure Domination (GNG Edit)
6ix9ine – GOOBA (Warface Bootleg)
Lady Dammage – Wap Bootleg
Farruko – Pepas (RefleXx Uptempo Hardcore Remix)
Flee Curley – FKN FLEEING
Brutal Theory – FAKE SH!T (Extended Mix)
Flout Mania – Kiss Like This (Master) (EXTENDED)
Chrono & Lano – Imagine (Snax Birthday Edit)
DJ Mad Dog – Bring the Hardcore (SDA Bootleg)
FleeCurley – POM POM POM
Ex-D – Hard Circus
Unicorn on Ketamine – KETAMINATOR (DOMINATOR TOOL)
Flout Mania – Dominator 2022
Brainkick & Tomsku – Let’s Get Hot (GNG Edit) Extended V3
Code Crime – Bass Demon (UNSYN Edit)
Brutalcore – Call Of The Valkyrie
Cryogenic Ft Major Conspiracy – Ha Ha (GNG Edit) V3
Flout Mania – Extermination MASTER
Website http://vivapunani.org/
(Media courtesy of the artist)
