Argentinian dance duo EQ are fighting for their right to party

On their first headline tour, EQ tell NME about infusing darkness in their hedonistic club anthems and pushing the limits of Latin music

I t’s a bright, sleepy Sunday evening in Peckham, but Vespers – an intimate, concrete basement – engulfs you in the thrill of darkness. Qiri, 26, stomps out on the stage, bandmate Estratosfera, 22, standing to her left. “ I love music ”, they purr repeatedly over scattershot kicks, as Qiri waves an enormous flag bearing the slogan: DANCE. RESIST. REPEAT . A 200-strong crowd screams back every lyric in English and Spanish and party furiously to the music.

Buenos Aires dance duo EQ have gone global off the back of their self-titled debut EP. Thanks to their commitment to making good fucking party music, they’ve performed at Skrillex ’s inaugural CONTRA festival in Berlin this year, and are currently travelling through Europe and Australia on their first headline tour. Alongside recent remixes from Nick León, umru and Underscores (under the alias Milkfish), they’ve also collaborated with Shygirl , Isabella Lovestory , Babymorocco and fellow Argentinian Six Sex .

“It’s pretty crazy,” Estratosfera acknowledges as NME reels off the list of names. “When we started making music together, our influences were a lot of these names or people that now are peers in the scene. It’s a very good sign that we are getting closer to places that we want to be, that are genuine to us and the music we actually like. But we are also very surprised, because it’s been very little time, and we are doing everything independently with our little team.”

Qiri concurs: “We come from the southernmost country in the world – it’s not expected at all. The reward is double.”

T hree hours before EQ are due to play, the girls huddle in the venue’s seating area to speak to NME . Qiri (real name Candela Mattera) cradles a tea in her hands for her sore throat, while Estratosfera (or Laura Ferreira) explains how the girls met. “I played guitar a lot in my teenage years, and at 18, I had an audition to play live guitar for this trap star and dear friend of ours, Saralamacara,” Ferreira explains. “I got in, and I started touring with her. That became my job for two, three years.”

On the side, Ferreira asked Sara’s producer, Evar, to teach her some production basics, but she still needed a computer that could handle making music. Cue Mattera, who not only had a proper PC but was already winning awards, having studied electroacoustic experimental music for six years.

The two became fast friends, hosting sleepovers as they began obsessively perfecting their songs. “We’re super nitpicky about vocals,” Mattera tells us. “We record eight hours straight – and maybe that’s not enough for one track. We do a lot of vocal comping, the chain has to be the perfect chain – even the way we resample things is crazy.”