Spaces

What do you do if you’re a powerhouse percussionist in a Brazilian heavy metal band that’s sold in excess of ten million records and you decide you want to explore new musical possibilities? If you’re Igor Cavalera, you up your sticks from the Sepultura drum stool, form a band called Mixhell with your DJ wife (Laima Leyton) and long time friend and fellow producer (Max Blum) and set about making hypnotic, manically driven electronic music.

With Igor in particular being no stranger at all to vast crowds, the trio played their debut show as Mixhell in front of 5000 people at Lollapalooza in Brazil.

As informed by subterranean European dancefloors as it is by South American mosh pits, ‘Spaces’ – Mixhell’s debut album – is truly one of the most invigorating dance albums of recent years. Featuring rhythm tracks so heavy they could shift tectonic plates (‘Antigalactic’), irresistible, rubberised basslines, wayward Moroder-esque analogue synths (‘The Way’, which features Deidre Muro on vocals as well as LCD Soundsystem’s Tyler Pope providing instrumentation) and Leyton’s glacial vocals (‘The Edge’), ‘Spaces’ has a sound which is as addictive as it is unique. The album’s first single, ‘Exit Wound’, with it’s euphoric percussion and groovy bass, features the gritty vocals of Greg Puciato from hardcore punk band The Dillinger Escape Plan, further emphasising the collaborative nature of Mixhell as a coming together of great minds and musical friends.

Mixhell play Old Blue Last in London on January 29th 2014.