Evlay releases “333”, his debut album: “I’ve always thought about the same thing, to continue on your own and don’t give a damn about everything”

Both the music and the numbers seem to guide the life of Facundo Yalve, better known as Evlay, a producer raised in Lanús who emerged from underground bands to work beats with Ca7riel, Acru, Nicki Nicole, Tiago PZK and become the instrumental guru of Wos. What guides his path are not the numbers of streams on platforms -although his productions bring together many of those- but that kind of codes that life presents to you. It’s not for nothing that his debut album is called “333” and it’s the excuse for his chat with Filo.news.” About 5 years ago I was working with the 3Música. There were 3 of them and throughout his life the number 3 began to follow them, he appeared to them all the time – he says from his home via Zoom – I half spent them, I told them ‘it can’t be, it’s impossible’. I stopped working with them, and that number started to appear absolutely everywhere, as I was gede“. Whether it’s the code on your home dumpster, the license plate of a car that was found lying around, or the first number that came across in a moment of distress: 333 was always there. “I take it as a confirmation number and it says ‘hey, it’s over here.’ I was very much related to this whole stage of the album.” Hence the title of this album that, although it is the first in his career, is preceded by an EP of -yes- 3 tracks entitled “1824”, after the zip code of Villa Caraza, the neighborhood where he grew up. “I carry those two numbers: one is the one for belonging and the other, where I’m going.” The germ of this album began to take shape in Berlin, where Evlay has been religiously escaping for 3 (!) years and where he was obsessed by “the Berghaim nightclub, its darkness and abstraction”. “I’m going against a thousand I handled with the techno and electronic music movement. I was woken up by the darkness,” he says. That’s precisely why the first base of those that ended up on the album was ‘ANTRO’, which features Ca7riel on vocals. “The post-Berlin feeling” was the inspiration. The LP ended up with 12 tracks, but the producer managed to create about thirty bases of styles and colors that interested him. “The only beat that came out and I said ‘hey, here yes or yes it’s him’, is Santi Motorizado,” he confesses, referring to ‘INVESTIDO’, the second broadcast cut that has the leader of El Mató a un Policía Motorizado singing along with Wos. Another exception was the first advance of the album, ‘INFLEXIÓN’, performed by the Argentinian singer and composer An Espil, with whom he directly joined in the studio to produce 1:1.  In ‘333’, Evlay’s search is focused on the sound passages and the atmospheres that are generated with each track. “I didn’t care so much about the length of the songs; In fact, you saw that on albums it’s always good to have the colors of the ballads – the ballads here are presented within those climates that are generated more than as a separate theme.” Under this goal, the voice often takes a back seat, with the instrumental being the protagonist. “I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that voices should be like another instrument. It’s a bit like the more English mixes that have all that stuff with reverb and distortion that eats away at the voice,” he explains and continues: “The role of producer often leads you to the opposite: ‘Che the voice has to be in the foreground because it’s the artist, because you’re getting paid’ and in this one I sucked my whole ball. I can put my voice wherever I can sing.” The one who did put the voice and only the voice as an element was La Chela, his grandmother, who displays all her wisdom and tenderness throughout the 55 seconds of track n7 in which she interprets “Naranjitay” by Jaime Torres. As you can see, it’s not all Berlin in ‘333’. It’s also the Falklands. ‘VASCO’, the penultimate track on the album, is inspired by the story of Norberto Hegoburu, owner of the Romaphonic studio, whose nickname gives the track its name: “He was the one who gave me all the tools to get into the audio. It’s crazy, but the track is treated like his life – he’s an ex-Falklands Combatant so it starts all re chill, but he has moments that he rots. It’s like his life told in one song.” Evlay’s way of understanding and expressing music explains the reason for this album. There’s art to vomit and thousands of ways to do it that don’t exhaust themselves in creating a beat for someone else. Surprise? Producers also have things to say. “The album ended up awakening this question of kicking a little bit of borders. The producer move for me is hyper mega fun, it’s good, but I can’t imagine producing all my life -reveals Evlay- In 3, 4 years I don’t know how much desire I’m going to have to dedicate myself purely and exclusively to producing artists, capable I can produce but from the most creative side. I’m more to develop projects that I have to sit down and do the work of being 3 years behind an album”. To the aforementioned participants of the album we must add a variety of artists: Taichu in ‘NO SIENTO MI SANGRE’; Lisandro Aristimuño in ‘CABEZAS DEL TIEMPO’; Neo Pistea in ‘PAPELITOS’; Nicolás Alfieri of Todo Aparenta Normal in ‘SILLÓN VERDE’; Pedrito Pasquale (CindyCats, Trueno violist) in ‘515’ and the list goes on. In parallel to the creation of the album, Evlay gave birth to another facet of himself: that of a DJ. “It always happened to me that in the process of creating tracks, no matter who it is for, you have a period of time between when you make the song in the studio, they make the video, the video comes out, and that period is a minimum of 3.4 months and in the best cases. This is different. I have the studio here at home, I put together a beat with the rave structure, I put it on the track now on the weekend I play, and people listen to it and can enjoy it. By the way, you see how that works. It’s happened to me that I’ve been playing tracks, seeing that people didn’t like it much, and in the end I don’t release it. I’ve never had that instant trial-and-error thing that’s really good.” In this process, Evlay recognises the figure of DJ Franzizca as key: “I met her this year and 2 days after I did my first DJ set in Madrid, she told me ‘Hey friend, I want you to play at the Numbers, are you?’. In this facet he told me ‘Don’t break the eggs anymore, you have to be you. Put your face on.'” The response to this proposal was positive and this Saturday 11/11 will be the second time that the Franzica-Evlay tandem plays in the same event, although it will not be the last. They will also share the bill at Lollapalooza Argentina 2024, where Evlay is announced with a “hybrid set”, as his figure should be understood today, a hybrid between producer – DJ – viola player – and who knows what else. In fact, to face this new stage as a DJ he anticipates that he will change his artistic alias: it will be BRICHTV (it reads ‘brichta’) as the tattoo on the right side of his head and that he takes from his maternal surname reads. Under this new AKA will release the remixes that are coming from ‘333’: “I’ve already sent a lot of remixes to be made. From Bizarrap to Sol Ortega, Franzizca, Yesan, Oniria. I told everyone ‘Let’s go for these BPMs, for this color’, they all got drunk. We’ll have to see who does it.” A new alias and also a new label: the albums he is preparing for rmxs will be released under a sub-label of Caraza Records, “which is going to be called Central Norte and is going to be full of electronic music”. But first things first: the presentation of the album will be on December 19 at Niceto Club. And if it’s anything remotely close to what the launch event was, you’re in for A trip. “Structurally, it’s going to be set up so that you can walk in and eat a trip from start to finish. Up to the BPM, the idea is that everything goes into a BPM and that from start to finish it doesn’t stop going up – and ends up quite a bit. With a few surprise guests from the album that’s coming.” Tickets for the show are already on sale here and all that remains is to confirm live what Evlay said in the studio: “In general, in life they always tell you no. ‘ Hey, you’re not going to be able to do this’ or ‘this data doesn’t seem to me to be out there’. From the production side, from the touching side, humanly, I always proposed that: that everything is worth a bit of a dick and beyond the functionality and the alternative issue, always continue with your own.” I feel like I show that a lot in general with the produs – I never joined any fashion or style, at some point I was related to urban music because I had to give it a name but I never really did urban. In fact, I have very few reggaetons, and if it’s a reggaeton, it’s a deformed hyper-mega thousand reggaeton. I feel like I’ve always tried to show a little bit of the same thing and I want to reveal it even more with this project, so that people can see it live and enjoy more that feeling of ‘hey that guy is doing what he wants.'” 

Original source in Spanish