dinky  "black cabaret" press

 

Vice – april 2002

Exotic electronica for after-hours parties in Barcelona

- Sophie  (7)

 

Careless talk costs lives – march/april 2003

Dinky’s got dark hair scraped back off her face, arched eyebrows and bruise tone eye shadow.  Dinky’s got red, red lipstick, a cigarette and a man’s suit.  She looks like one of the models from the “Addicted to Love” video.  But she sounds like she’s offed Palmer with an ice pick, slung the corpse in a car boot and taken over the studio.

 

If “Black Cabaret” is a club record, it’s more after-hours coming down than dancefloor-happening.  Dinky’s a fully-fledged graduate of the NY electroclash scene, except it’s not trashy enough.  Too often, wipe-clean midtempo tracks edge into ambience, and it takes a vocal sample stabbing through the synth riffs to bring the listener round.  When she revs, as on the title track and “that thing goin’”, the urgency is enough to push seduction into sexiness but, fucksake, stop trying so hard to sound sophisticated.

 

Give me something I can dance to.

-          kicking_k

 

Flyer – march 2003

NYC clubgoers who have heard Chilean DJ/producer Miss Dinky spin her tight, punishing dancefloor techno sets, or heard her other moody techno, ambient, and minimal tech-house production on germany ’s Traum imprint, might be surprised by the direction of her debut solo effort.  Black Cabaret is decidedly un-techno: it’s feel-good electronic retro-pop dressed with vocals and chiming synth notes, all still retaining Dinky’s trademark groovy kick.  “American guy” has all of the tongue-in-cheek silliness that you’d expect to hear on a miss kitten track (“this is the land of the free and the brave and the O.J. Simpson”), while “Berlin Nites” offers full-on catchy electronic pop, garnished with the ultimate pop icon reference – a breathy vocal sample from the Material Girl, herself.  Aaah, the sweet sound of crossover success.

- janet tzou

 

the weekly dig - march 12th, 2003
As you may have already heard, the American leg of Dinky’s planned tour has been cut off due to technical difficulties of the visa variety. In other words, Alejandra Iglesias, who was previously sleeping in New York City, was denied a renewal of her visa and has been sent home to Chile, a thousand miles away. Which is really too bad, because her new album, Black Cabaret, is pretty good and reminds me of what Prince would give birth to if he got knocked up by Tricky while Madonna ambitiously watched – like smoking hydroponic in a little red Corvette – with the windows up – cruising a material world at a moderate speed. While growing up in Santiago, Chile, Dinky was classically trained on piano and electric organ. And you can tell because Black Cabaret’s bass lines and melodies are poppy but enjoyable, while the beats, generally speaking, are fairly simple and sometimes boring. The musical style of the album isn’t exactly unique – what is these days? – but the songs are well written and well produced (by Dinky). There’s usually a good balance between the beats per minute and the vocal speed of the singer, too, whether it be Dinky herself or Keith Strand, who contributes vocals to “American Guy" and “Miles Away." The lyrics are a little cheesy, but they make me want to dance half-naked inside a cage in exchange for drugs. God, that sounds fun.
- alissa mariello

 

Burn it blue – February 2003

New York resident Dinky, aka Alejandra Iglesias, apparently intends these tracks as ‘slinky odes to downtown’ nightlife’. Well, concepts are often meaningless but it has to be said, there’s something pretty damned sleazy, subterranean and sassy about this. The electroid jerkiness of American Guy’ being a case in point. Overall, ‘Black Cabaret’ hot wires a deviant pop heart, to nu wave electro hipness, subtle hints of electronica invention and early techno nostalgia. ‘White Lie’ meanwhile is an Oriental Prince. However, occasionally there’s an sense of drift... of music failing to fully channel itself into the sucker punch it’s probably capable of.

- Gal Detourn

BIB Rating: 3/5

 

Uncut – march 2003 ***

New york DJ takes a turn on the other side of the tables

In a classic global-village journey, young Chilean dance student Alejandra Iglesias fell in love with vintage electro sounds and eventually wound up as a DJ in New York City , spinning under the name Dinky.  already a couple of years into a fully-fledged recording career, she turns out a seamless blend of techno, contemporary electroclash, and Kraftwerk-loving retro.

Spare, sparkling and danceable, Black Cabaret is the soundtrack to the minds of the electro-minions that scour eBay for the keywords “minimalist synth”.

-  jim allen

 

new york magazine – February 20th, 2003

For all the excitement New York ’s electro parties generated last year, little came out of the scene but underproduced and overly bitchy music. A little-known New York electro D.J. and producer who calls herself Dinky is about to change that with her surprisingly accomplished debut, Black Cabaret. Here, Dinky rejects the retro tendencies of the electro scene for the simple, pretty tones usually heard on storied electronic-music labels like Cologne ’s Kompakt. It’s a risky proposition—Black Cabaret might have been unbearably pretentious—but it works because Dinky’s approach is so personal. It’s great headphone music in the tradition of Björk’s Vespertine.

-ethan brown

 

logo-magazine - february 2003

The alternate face of the New York scene, Dinky’s broody, bewitching electro-dance is infinitely more interesting than the cloned retro-rock for which the city is better known.  The title track could be Air interpreting Cabaret Voltaire on the moon, twitching and skipping in slow-motion through space dust, while ‘White Lie’ recalls Einsturzende Neubauten with the keys to the melody cupboard with Prince in tow.  Alejandra Iglesias may have taken the name Dinky, but Slinky would have been more appropriate; and though she sounds like she hails from Manchester circa 1978 this is no mere imitation.  ‘Black Cabaret’ delivers on the promise of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ with a side order of effortless sleaze; forget Electroclash, this is Electro Class.

- fela lewis

 

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