New releases this week: All genres

Review: El Buho's (Robin Perkins') influential 2017 debut album returns with its first repress, aiding our reflections on an album that helped define the digital folklorica and "natural cumbia" movements emergent in electronic music in the latter half of the 2010s. Balance weaves a complex darn of naturalism, Latin American rhythms, and modern synthetic percussion design, smudging the lines cordoning off organics and synthesis. Hailed in the press as "the ultimate fusion of nature and music" and for evidencing Mexico's indigenous roots in sound, El Buho helped bridge organic and digital worlds of cumbia Andina and chicha with electronic textures here, presaging and perhaps causing the clamour over cumbia that has since ensued.

Review: With his third EP and second for this label, Seattle-based South American Martin Selasco's project continues to carve out a distinct space in the Balearic downtempo universe, radiating a sun-baked, cross-cultural charm that is worldly and intimate. Side-A opens with 'La Pantera', a smoky instrumental driven by a dubby pulse and layered Latin percussion, the track's hazy atmosphere and subtle melodic touches hinting at everything from tropical lounge to low-slung sound system culture. 'Descalzo' is more of a downtempo cumbia laced gem with light funk and breezy French-Island textures. The rhythm sways with a casual elegance, evoking barefoot dances at golden hour and lazy days under a beachside canopy. Effortlessly blending influences, this EP feels like a postcard from an imagined coastline that somewhere between Colombia, Guadeloupe and the Balearics.