With Ana Helder, an Argentinian musician based in Cologne, Germany, you can expect aggressive drums, weird samples, and lots of bass guitar. She releases most of her music on Cómeme, after connecting with the label through MySpace. She debuted on the label with El Groove De Tu Corazón.

Helder was born in Rosario but raised in Buenos Aires, where she developed an interest in music, especially rock and reggae. During the early 2000s, she tried to play in bands but struggled to memorize song structure, so naturally she fell into programming, editing, and improvising. Since 2011, the same year she signed with Cómeme, Helder has developed a broad discography that amplifies house music with boogie, disco, and funk. In 2020, she shared Landpark, a five-track EP on Müstique, but more recently she delivered a chugging psychedelic piece of dance music for the latest XLR8R+ package.

Now, in support of that package, she’s delivered an XLR8R podcast, recorded earlier this month during her set at Odonien in Cologne. It was a dark and musty atmosphere, with an empty dancefloor, and Helder’s job was to fill it. Pulling tracks from Space Ghost, DJ Python, and Ron Trent, she moved from brooding psychedelia to hard-hitting techno, all underlined by warped sound design that’s sure to trip you out and melt your mind.

01. What have you been up to recently?
The usual: working on music.

02. What have you been listening to? 
This weekend a good friend introduced me to Saturno 2000 which I found really cool. It’s a compilation about cumbia rebajada. It has very nice sonic sounds and funny lyrics.

03. When and where did you record this mix?
It was earlier this month, when I played in Odonien in Cologne. I realized I had to do the mix and I saw the opportunity to do it there.

04. What can the listener expect?
It’s the first hour of my set that night. The doors had only just opened so there were only three people there. I thought about starting with some calm techno and house but the people wanted to dance so I built it up fast and soon the room was filled with dancers.

05. How did you go about choosing the tracks you’ve included? 
I selected from a collection of tracks that I want to play and I think they can fit during the night. In this case the dancefloor was dark and foggy. So I chose tracks that could work in that place and also for the podcast. In general, I like to try out tracks that are fresh but there’s some tracks that I always carry with me. Like Bell’s “Computer.”

06. What’s next on your horizon? 
I’m looking forward to playing in the next Comeme night in Tbilisi with Matias Aguayo, Katerina, and Borusiade. I’m also close to finishing some material I want to release.

XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to hear the podcast offline you will need to subscribe to our Select channel to listen offline, or subscribe to XLR8R+ to download the file. The move to Mixcloud Select will ensure that all the producers with music featured in our mixes get paid. You can read more about it here.

Full XLR8R+ Members can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R+ member, you can read more about it and subscribe here.

Tracklisting

01. DJ Python “Oooophi” (Incienso)
02. Ana Helder “Campanas” (Unreleased)
03. Space Ghost “Deep” (Vibes Mix) (Tartelet Records)
04. D.K. “Marimba Theme” (Antinote)
05. Bell “Computer” (Satelite)
06. King Jazz “Lockdown” (NTS)
07. Jamal Moss “The Lust With-In” (Modern Love)
08. Tony Price “Turbo” (Dub) (Telephone Explosion Records)
09. Zillas on Acid “Black Cat” (Optimo Music Digital Danceforce)
10. Teto Preto “Pedra Preta” (Valesuchi Remix) (Mamba Rec)
11. System 01 “Paralysed Force” (Mannequin)
12. Ron Trent “Flos Potentia” (Sugar, Cotton, Tabacco) feat. Khruangbin (Night Time Stories)
13. Sara Dziri “Horizons” (Optimo Music Digital Danceforce)