Safety Trance

by Claudio Lancia

Luis Garbán Valdeón is a highly regarded Venezuelan producer and DJ, currently based in Barcelona, known on the underground circuit under the alias Cardopusher, a project through which he operates within the avant-garde electronic scene, drawing on techno-rave-industrial sounds. With his more recent moniker Safety Trance, the intention is to explore new directions, fusing industrial club music with reggaeton, neo-perreo and Latin urban music, leaning on a greater number of vocal tracks and a skillful web of collaborations. Luis had already carved out a bit of notoriety thanks to his work alongside friend and fellow countrywoman Arca, both on the "Kick" series and on the single "El alma que te trajo", included on the debut EP "Noches de terror", back in 2022. He has since worked with other hugely important names in the avant-pop scene, such as Sega Bodega, Eartheater and Lolahol (Lourdes Leon, daughter of Mrs. Ciccone, featured on the trance-inflected "Except In Spring"), and many of the results can be found right inside "Sacrificio".

The sound Safety Trance proposes is aggressive, dark, metallic, yet still danceable. It takes the syncopated rhythms of dembow (the rhythmic backbone of reggaeton) and bombards them with techno distortion, acid synths and hardcore/gabber atmospheres. After “Lágrimas”, released at the end of 2022, with “Sacrificio” Safety Trance consolidates its mix of deconstructed clubbing and abrasive Latin sounds. It's an album that flies by in a flash, 14 tracks in a total of 28 minutes that ideally join Caracas's underbelly to Barcelona's most outrageous clubs. Darkness and polyrhythms that aim to strip Hispanic rhythms of any pop-leaning sunniness, dragging them instead into a claustrophobic underground space. “Sacrificio” is the programmatic manifesto of this mutation, a hyper-technological pagan ritual in which Latin roots aren't grafted on as an exotic affectation, but instead form the load-bearing structure of a cyber-punk aesthetic.

But the beating heart of the record lies in its mixed-breed, collaborative nature: “Sacrificio” wouldn't be the same without the presence of accomplice (and muse?) Arca. Their synergy on the little-over-a-minute opener “The Beat Drops” immediately sets the tone for the record, which then finds further levels of deconstruction in the quick one-two of “Inter i” / “Curiapo” and in “Puxa saco”, tracks that tear the song form apart until it collapses. Evocative manipulations, sonic transmutations, ecstasy and torture. No less significant is the contribution of Sega Bodega and Eartheater, a deluxe pairing who bring in elements of mutant pop music, fragments of melody floating over a carpet of distortion, delivering the album's most important track, the lulling “Most Of Me (Is Elsewhere)”, a lullaby of rare beauty that pairs with “Panties” (featuring Mexico's Meth Math), proof of Safety Trance's skill at writing more atmospheric material. Other highlights come courtesy of “Hustlin” (with Thoom and Lilith) and “Wrd pms”, made solo but no less ferocious for it.

Also worth noting is the presence of Six Sex, another emerging name from the South American circuit (she's from Buenos Aires), who makes a forceful entrance on the lashing “No me quiero dormir”. Where the record loses a few points is in its second half, when reggaeton takes up more space and the dramatic edge of the sound blends with a certain cunning (as in “Duro”). It remains clear that, where other producers in the deconstructed club scene get lost in intellectual abstraction, Safety Trance is a master at keeping a fundamental quality intact: dancefloor effectiveness, flooring the accelerator while imagining a middle ground where the boundaries between genres tend to blur. All of it designed to bring a certain level of “danger” back into club culture, which has by now become easy pickings for DJs/influencers busy flooding social media with selfies snapped inside luxury resorts in the planet's most Instagrammable spots. No longer willing to take any risks.

17/06/2026