Moom No More: Nadastrom Reintroduce Themselves to the World with a New LP

Almost a decade into existence, Nadastrom are releasing their self-titled debut album on February 22 on Friends of Friends/Dubsided. Credited with inventing moombahton, the slowed-down electro/reggaeton hybrid, the duo's Dave Nada and his longtime friend Matt Nordstrom were faves within the DC scene before reloacting to LA around the turn of the decade. With moombahton, they stumbled into wide acclaim, but even before the appetite for the evanescent scene burned off, Nadastrom were already on some wholly different sonic journey. If anyone thinks of Nadastrom as the "moombahton duo," they've just not been paying attention.

"We still love moombahton music," Nada proclaims. "We still throw Moombahton Massive with Sabo in DC. But the way we approach music is that we never try to force anything. We're like sponges, so as time goes on, our vibes change and we evolve as producers. That's how we're gonna roll. And that might ruffle some feathers for people that know us from moombahton. I guess some fans want us to keep doing the same thing, but that's just not how we work…Even in the peak of moombahton, a lot of the stuff we were making was fairly deep."

During their set at a recent HARD Day of the Dead, they transitioned from moombah to tropical bass to footwork to jungle, closing with Origin Unknown's underground jungle classic "Valley of the Shadows." ("I just wanted to fuck with Jack Beats who were about to go on," Nordstrom recalls, laughing about the purposefully wonky transition.) Their self-titled album recreates that sense of adventure, but presented through a mature and moody aesthetic, shedding the playful air for something more serious and club-facing.

"A lot of the songs were experiments in moombahton," explains Nordstrom. "The ideas and influences are definitely there, but to the regular listener it might not be as obvious as it would be in a popular moombahton record."

Tracks like "Fallen Down" rock a subdued moombah rhythm under a techy, deep house production. "Kids" maintains the tempo and bassline of a moombah track but is otherwise entirely techno – it sounds more like Marcel Dettman than Munchi. The rest of the album alludes to a vast spectrum of musical interests, from Chicago-influenced house to alt-R&B to jungle.

Even if it's not readily obvious, both Nada and Nordstrom can trace their musical roots to the DC punk scene of the 90s. "We would both go to a lot of the same shows," Nada says. "Growing up in DC in the mid-90s was a really interesting time for post-punk and hardcore. The scene was really driving then. You had Fugazi playing $5 shows and Dischord [Records] was such a big influence. The whole DIY ethic too… that's something that's stuck with us."

Further, Nadastrom's rangy sonic tendencies are also a result of the particular pattern in which they fell into music. "Me and Dave started as DJs at around the same time we were playing in bands and then started to learn production later," Nordstrom explains. "I think our path was different from kids who are coming up now. Production's always the first thing for them. Learning how to DJ is the next move. It's completely flipped, which is interesting. I don't think DJing is a lost art, though. I think there aren't a lot of people keeping that art alive in pop culture, but within the underground, it's definitely alive and well."

Many an artist intrinsically linked to a scene carry that albatross with them for the entirety of their careers. Nadastrom, in their typically laconic fashion, have managed to both maintain their affinity for what made them while shrugging off any expectations placed upon them. Nadastrom is a club album from an act known more for playing ragers, but if you were looking closely, the signs were always there, just simmering under the horns and the drops and the whoops.

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Jemayel Khawaja is Managing Editor of THUMP - @JemayelK