Ralphie Choo’s Instagram feed goes as such: picture of impressively muscular woman giving fellow Madrid-native Rusowsky a tattoo. Warped photo of Choo and producer DRUMMIE embracing in nondescript parking lot at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound. Blurry photo of his own face, skin crinkling under red paint.

There’s something enigmatic about the artist’s online persona– perhaps it is the ease with which he manipulates the lingua franca of the internet, how he tweaks regular images to become just glitchy enough, just over-processed enough to hover in the periphery of the grotesque. As does the digital footprint, so too, goes the production and execution of Choo’s music, which draws on classic Spanish flamenco to spawn mechanical iterations of the canon in a digital age.

‍Ralphie Choo and Rosowsky’s new single, “GATA,” whines and contorts, nurturing recognizable flamenco rhythms as if they are being recalled in a faraway dream. Halting, staccatoed snares, breathy vocals and gripping echoes, the single feels vital, sensual. Ahead of the artist’s debut album to be released this fall, “GATA” establishes Choo– and the Madrid-based collective, Rusia idk– as a scorching talent. Smirking, dark, dizzying, “GATA” is going to be the song you think of when you, in the depths of a cold, barren winter, think about that one melting, sweaty summer night. 

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