Numa Gama - A Spectral Turn (2024)

In an unusual collaboration between a Brazilian artist and a Chinese label, Numa Gama returns with a left-field take on her music-making, A Spectral Turn. Inspired by Derrida’s Hauntology, and the post-capitalist instigations of Anna Tsing, she weaves an eerie and cold subtropical soundscape that explores themes of freedom and imagination amidst the ghosts that inhabit today’s world.

Each track here unfolds like a vignette, as translucent synth lines float independently, accompanied by abstract sounds and glitches. This amalgamation creates a rational yet cozy stream of consciousness, guiding the listener through the haunted corridors of the memories of the past, ideas of the present, and miscarriages of the future. To summon these ideas, Numa Gama draws a parallel between negotiating political change and making kin with her own creative desires.

Rather than providing nostalgic sensations or futuristic insights, A Spectral Turn acknowledges that history ends at every moment, and gives way to new beginnings, swarming with ghosts.