I didn't really know how else to title this post other than just call it 'Ricardo Villalobos'. Hardly the most elaborate of titles I'm aware, but then then I realised that for someone as illustrious, artistic and modest as Ricardo, there is something so appropriately pure about just using his name, nothing added, to title a post dedicated just to him. Just like his music, less is more.

Ever since his return to fabric was announced a few weeks ago, I have been mulling over the idea of putting together some kind of tribute to him, something we are yet to do for any DJ or producer so far on SOTW. But if there's one person who deserves special acknowledgment more than any it's Ricardo Villalobos. A DJ who delivers legendary sets of epic length and memorable content, a producer who seems able to manipulate the machines he uses in ways nobody else can, and a personality who makes us all smile with his warmth, generosity and charisma. This is why we love him, and with only a week to go before he lights up the lives of the many who will pack out fabric in the early hours and beyond, here is our pick of what we believe is the best of Ricardo Villalobos's own productions.

10. Ricardo Villalobos - What You Say (Is More Than I Can Say)


The first of three to come from Villalobos's seminal album, Alcachofa, and easily one of the LP's signature anthems. Just like all that appeared on Alcachofa, What You Say is ungulfed in all that warm, organic sound that became unique only to that album. Never again would the droning, tripped out vocals appear on any other Villalobos production, and that is perhaps why particularly this track, among all the rest on Alcachofa, have become so cherished and celebrated.

9. Ricardo Villalobos & Jorge Gonzalez - 4 Wheel Drive


Admittedly, this track is taken off Villalobos's fabric 36 mix, but its inclusion for me still feels like the heartbeat of the mix. At only five and half minutes in length it's remarkably short for such a outstanding Villalobos track, but in that short time is an array of glorious percussive elements glued together with typically nonsensical but welcomely trippy vocals from Los Updates' Jorge Gonzalez, creating something peculiar, but irresistibly rhythmic.

8. Ricardo Villalobos - Queen of Bass Mix


The final part of his deeply beautiful three-track 808 The Bassqueen EP, and one that left a lasting impression on me from the very first time my ears were treated to it. It's not the kind of Villalobos you would hear midway through a set, designed to keep people moving, but far more downtempo. You can imagine him using it to end one of his marathon sets at fabric when those left really are running on empty. Apparently he did.

7. Ricardo Villalobos - Lugom-ix


Villalobos's fourth full length album, Salvador, certainly presents the Chilean's most classically 'techno' work to date. The fragile, minimal structures he had become synonymous with were cast aside for muscular, aggressive basslines that we would never see again. The pick of these on Salvador can only by Lugom-ix, which rumbles in a way that these days you find hard to believe came from a musical mind as minimalist-conscious as Villalobos's.

6. Ricardo Villalobos - Minimoonstar


Shackleton's remix may have received more universal acclaim, but the original Minimoonstar for me is still unreachable in terms of creative genius with such restricted musical boundaries. The microscopic intricacy of every flake of percussion and every beat of a drum could rarely construe something so powerfully metric, but such is Villalobos's command of and attention to every single frequency, what is created is something as deliberately moving as it is delicate.

5. Ricardo Villalobos - Electonic Water


The second track to be taken from Villalobos's most recent full-length, Vasco and like Minimoonstar, Electonic Water it's more of the same microscopically meticulous soundscape, with sounds so organic, so abnormal you couldn't possibly mistake it coming from the mind of anyone else. What begins as a skeletal sequence of bass and delicate flecks of percussion gradually builds towards a frighteningly surprising climax of just one single synth, which opens the door to floods of utterly fascinating sonic gesturing.

4. Ricardo Villalobos - Enfants (Chants)


Just because Enfants is potentially no more than just a DJ 'tool' doesn't necessarily rule it out as one of Villalobos's greatest works. There's no bass and the entire 17 minutes is nothing but pianos, the gentle clatter of a kick drum and the endless, repeated infantile chant of "Baba Yaga La Sorcière", sampled from an old Christian Vander track, but its magic is undeniable. There is something so pure, so inspirational about the simplicity of Enfants, which is probably why it has become as iconic as the man who made it.

Ricardo Villalobos - Easy Lee


Arguably Villalobos's most famous track, Easy Lee opened Alcahofa in a style nobody had quite heard before. As RA's Todd Burns so perfectly described the 'dessicated' voice that reverberates throughout, it is just tantalizingly out of reach. After listening to it over and over we feel like we know what is being said, despite in reality being no closer than the first time we ever heard it. It is this dimension of mystery that Villalobos can inject into his music that makes it so addictive, and there's possibly no better example of this than in Easy Lee.

2. Ricardo Villalobos - MDMA


If I was going to be pedantic and a little superior, I would have confused many and correctly titled this track as Bosch by Richard Wolfsdorf, an alias of Villalobos when he produced the track we know today as MDMA (Chris posted about this a little while ago). Whatever you want to call it though, it's one of the most recognizable tracks in the world of techno, and whenever it's played the reception it gets as it thumps and chugs soundsystems all over demonstrates exactly how good it is.

1. Ricardo Villalobos - Dexter


I remember the very first time I heard Dexter. Coming towards the end of Alcachofa, I was already fairly absorbed, but then I was hit with what I would regard as the greatest track I've ever heard, as far as electronic music is concerned. After probably listening to it about 100 times since, I still am not yet bored of hearing it. There are dark, seductive secrets about that bassline that I still seek to discover and it's rare to find a track sealed with so much intrigue and enigma, yet still able to make you move in such a free, limitless manner.