Alejandro Marenco, the shortened moniker of Nicaraguan-born, Chicago-based musician Noel Alejandro Gutierrez Marenco, makes expansive electronic grooves designed for “throwing ass.” Marenco’s music is evocative of that night, the one that feels simultaneously driftless and gigantic, one that glimmers upon remembering hours spent in a sweat-drenched, dimly-lit club, or the last dance at a dive bar down the street, or a blaring stereo during a wide-eyed 3am cross-city drive to get home. Largely creating in Ableton (and occasionally bolstered by a drum machine and Moog synth), Marenco fluidly weaves a variety of sounds from endless inspirations - Jamaican collective Equiknoxx, the latin tribal techno of Nick León, and the influential dance label Livity Sound, to name a few. Elastic beats, industrial percussion, fluid synth, oscillating rhythms, and a flourish for ever-changing instrumentation, Marenco’s mixes are reverberating moments of kaleidoscopic euphoria. Currently, Marenco has several mixes and EPs available on Bandcamp. In addition to his own project, he’s also one half of Otra Dek. There’s more to come from Marenco in 2022. - Jaycee Rockhold