Ricardo Villalobos reworks goat (JP) pieces for Latency release

Ricardo Villalobos has taken goat (JP)’s choreography music and pushed it deeper into the long-form, hypnotic zone that keeps minimal techno listeners locked in. Latency’s Without References / Cindy van Acker (Variations) turns a work first written for Cindy van Acker’s dance piece into a compact three-track release, pairing choreography, contemporary composition and Villalobos’ own percussion-minded sense of drift and pressure.

The Paris label issued the digital version on June 12, 2026, in 24-bit/48kHz, with the vinyl edition due to ship around June 19. Latency, run in Paris by Souleymane Said and distributed worldwide by !K7 Music, framed the project as part of its ongoing interest in reinterpretation and rhythmic dialogue, a lane it has already been exploring through Villalobos’ 2025 variation on Mohammad Reza Mortazavi’s Swamp.

The new release narrows goat (JP)’s original score into three Villalobos interpretations: Orin (Ricardo Villalobos Variation), Factory (Ricardo Villalobos Variation 1), and Factory (Ricardo Villalobos Variation 2). That restraint matters. goat (JP), led by Osaka-based composer Koshiro Hino and formed in 2013, built the original material around percussive interplay rather than melody-first writing, and Villalobos responds by stretching those non-tonal rhythms into intricate, tactile structures that feel designed for concentrated listening rather than quick club consumption.

For Villalobos, the fit is obvious. Born in Chile in 1970 and raised in Germany from 1973, he started on congas and bongos as a child, and that early percussion instinct still sits at the center of his work. Here it lines up neatly with Cindy van Acker’s own precision. Born in Belgium in 1971, trained in classical ballet in Antwerp and founder of Compagnie Greffe in 2002, van Acker has spent decades building a body of work where movement and structure are inseparable.

This is also not a one-off detour. goat (JP) released the original Without References / Cindy van Acker in March 2025, also on vinyl and in 24-bit/48kHz, as the score for van Acker’s dance work. The new Variations release pulls that material into a sharper frame, and with only three tracks on offer, Latency has made the crossover feel less like art-world tourism than a precise statement from the edge of the scene.