And the time of love came. Yes, even for Salvador Navarrete, better known as Sega Bodega, unpredictable producer Chilean-Irish who has been offering a for years traptronics oblique and irreverent, constantly undecided whether to get lost among the screeches fetish of a sex clubs or reluctantly follow the temptations of serious songwriting. Along a triptych of vaguely autobiographical works – “Salvador” (2020), “Romeo” (2021) and “Dennis” (2024) – Sega Bodega has introduced its musical world with a liquid hand and colloquial inspiration, gradually conquering an audience increasingly intrigued by its way of dealing with digital material – we are still talking about the founder of the NUXXE brand, on which the first works of Oklou and Shygirl found their outlet, because among other things the boy is also an effective people-slut.
Precisely for this reason his new album surprises the listener with a title which, in its entirety, reads like the most dispassionate dedication of love of the current year: “I Created The Universe So That Life Could Create A Language So Complex, Just To Say How Much I Love You”. What ever moved our Salv to compose these pieces? Why do you feel so vulnerable in the face of the cosmos and all the surrounding human and divine conditions?
Already from the splendid opening of “Pipe”, with Vashti Bunyan's voice hovering in the back of the mix like a ghost, it is evident how, this time, textures and composition have acquired a tearful roundness in the bass, as if the author wanted to distill the emotional essence of Albinoni's famous “Adagio in G minor” through the process of William Orbit's “Pieces In A Modern Style”. Even when it offers a funny title like “Y tu mamá ambient”, in fact, the result is anything but ridiculous: if anything, it is one of the most touching moments in the setlist, if not for the subsequent “Cradle”, with the voice of Mayah Alkhateri, who cradles the listener with a gentle hand under a starry night sky.
We then find Mayah on “Tab Laih” who sings a delicate song reminiscent of her Arab origins, while Lucinda Chua's cello underlines first the whisper of “mmMMmmmm”, then the tone deconstructed-chamber music of “The World Around Me Is Working Against My Memory” – a title, this one, which does not fail to provide some notes of drama through the four tensioned strings of the instrument.
But even alone, Salvador lovingly refines each section of his work; the quiet just flecked by the keyboard of “Crystal Loop” extends as far as the eye can see, “Gamahuche” as a counterpart offers a brief new age idea, leaving “1500-1880k” the task of gracefully unrolling a bare minimalist idea that seems synthesized from the scores of Terry Riley or Laraaji.
Obviously it's right there title track to become the celestial organ of the work, through sweet digital hisses and full-hearted melodic openings, which would be almost corny in other contexts, but not in the hands of Sega Bodega, here more capable than ever of being carried away by emotion without appearing kitsch. However, it is up to “True (Pure Mix)” the task of closing the listening with a sci-fi cinematic finale that swells through a dust of progressive electronics.
Unsettling, touching, silent and vulnerable, “I Created The Universe So That Life Could Create A Language So Complex, Just To Say How Much I Love You” stands as one of the most unexpectedly emotional ambient listens of the year, the strange creation of a composer from whom, now, we can really expect anything…
12/13/2025
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
