horatio luna: action reaction
Francisco Espregueira
Melbourne’s underground has always had a soft spot for artists who blur the line between club music and live improvisation, and Horatio Luna new album on La Sape Records sits comfortably in that tradition. Six years after Yes Doctor (La Sape Records, 2020), ACTION REACTION is a record that feels more open, brighter around the edges and less tied to the late-night haze of his earlier work. Recorded across studios in Coburg and South Melbourne, the album folds together jazz phrasing, loose house rhythms and flashes of street-level intimacy, with voicemail snippets drifting through like memories caught mid-conversation.
Horns stretch out over funk-driven grooves, crystalline synths soften the corners, and tracks often shift between structure and spontaneity without warning. Horatio Luna has long explored that in-between space, but here it feels sharper, matured. As always, confident. Some compositions revisit older ideas from his catalogue, though now they arrive with more warmth and patience. The result is an album that works equally well through headphones or low-lit speakers, balancing dancefloor movement with the feeling of someone still searching in real time. ACTION REACTION drops this friday and will be be available on vinyl.
“The record is a continuation of my exploration into the musical dualities: jazz and house, improvisation and composition, structure and spontaneity, whilst trying to weave these opposing forces into a danceable yet abstract listening experience.”