By Julia Smith

November 9th 2025

It’s said in times of economic downturn and uneasy political climates, music lends itself to be the free-forum of freedom and escapism. In Argentina, where the arts are getting defunded and the function is always threatening to get shut down early, the party is only beginning to start.  The eponymous debut EP from Buenos Aires-based duo EQ is a mimetic tribute to the soundscape of the afters, one that begins at the end of the party in a fogged out delirium. Made up of artist-producers, ‘E’ for Estratosfera, aka Laura Ferreira, and Q’ for Qiri, aka Candela Mattera— the duo EQ has been working with each other since 2021, pulling archival samples and mixing them with a bouncy leading synth and a scratching bassline (where is that alarm coming from?).

Born out of a desire to create a space for themselves as female producers in a primarily male-dominated music industry in Argentina, EQ started out by mastering the technical side of production. While not on the EP, “Racecar,” featured on Estratosfera’s 2023 solo album 1 and (first-public) collaboration with Qiri and fellow Buenos Aires star Six Sex, became one of the the first songs that the duo made together helping to lay the groundwork for the duo’s signature bubblegum sound inlaid in industrial club electronica. 

With visualizers that incorporate tongue in cheek motifs like wired apple headphones and mock Getty Image watermarks, their visual imagery is as integral to the identity of the group as their sound is. With the duo’s neo-Y2K visual aesthetics lightly dusted with frutiger-aero simplicity, combined with Noughties-adjacent Cobra Snake flash photography, it makes for a future-free ambiance. To E & Q, the visual imagery borrowed from the turn of the century is more than a sleek aesthetic, it symbolizes an optimistic point in history in which the internet was viewed as an altruistic tool for humanity. To look back at that moment, from the rise of artificial intelligence and the looming monolith of private equity, it’s nice to pretend even for a bit that we did get our glassy future. 

Their music video for “Girls My Age” is staged in a living room, where the duo is set up on a white table with a spinning fan in the background. With a group of roisterers in the background sitting on a couch, the video recreates the intimate atmosphere of a house party, it's a set that has  since then been minted in the hyperstylized annals of Edit culture.

Mixed with their electrocrushed PC-inspired tracks, the latest EQ EP forms the latest vanguard of a new generation of electronic driven producers from Buenos Aires mixing reggaeton and gritty & abrasive industrial beats. The pitch-shifted feminine vocals and rough synthetic textures of tracks like “B.S.A.S (Si Alguna Vez te Sentis Sola de Noche)” and “7’ Mix” are club-ready hits that lay the background track to the sweat slicked afters, picking up at the frenetic tête-à-tête in the bathroom outside of the main floor. 

EQ vision, being a recurring theme throughout the EP, is something that the duo has carefully thought through and architected in the last few years of collaboration. A continued dialogue with internet culture and the hypermodern memeosphere, the vision that they have for the future is one that emphasizes fun & the joy of just being a girl, colloquially speaking. With a growing global audience, they’re translating the localized dance scene in Buenos Aires for the world through chopped up mixes and digital distortion. 

Read my full conversation with EQ below.

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It’s been around two months since you released EQ, how has it been?

Qiri:

I honestly think it's really rewarding, I would say. I think it is something that obviously we've been expecting. I mean, it's our debut EP, like our first six little songs together.  I think we're very proud of that. And also like also taking it easy because, it's just like really just the tip of the iceberg of  what we've been doing. What are we going to do with EQ, like with our duo, like us together as friends, as artists, as collaborators. We're so happy, but it really feels like just the beginning of everything.

Estratosfera:

Yeah, I feel like it's been, I thought it would feel like the ending of something like, oh, ‘It's finally over. We put out our music, we're so happy.’ But it really feels like just the beginning of everything. I've gotten a new perspective on things, and it really feels like a beginning, and it is a giant celebration and people receiving it super well, and us being able to show our range of the possibilities of things that EQ can be, because every track on the EP is very different from each other, and that's intentional, and I feel like people took that really well and with arms open, and it has been really rewarding and nice. 

So, take me back to the beginning.

E: 

We met through maybe people in common and on the music scene, artsy type people scene or whatever. I think the vibes were very female, early years, but female companionship, female understanding because we were both girls who were starting to learn how to produce music. Of course, sadly, most of the producers are men, at least also here in our town. We were each other's only other fellow girl that we knew that made that wanted to make serious music and get on the the technical part of it.

Q: 

But also I feel like when we met, we also went to a lot of things and we really had this shared interest and became really close friends. And I always tell the story of staying up all night and producing and sleeping over each other's houses, and then going out the next day to a local party and then coming back and playing our songs. And that's really a theme, a very specific girl oriented way of living through music and production, and we really connected through that. I feel like if I had to put senses on it at first, I definitely would've said it's pink and sweaty and hot, because we were always at parties when we first met, and I don't know, just like a vanilla tender, sweet cinnamon smell at the very beginning. Very innocent. 

E:

I would say there was a spark of big interest and just the thought of, we both want this or this, let's just do it. Why not? There's nothing that could go against this, but definitely we weren't expecting what happened, I think to this point so quickly, at least with the project, which is great. 

Tell me about a weekend out in Buenos Aires. What is that like? 

E:

I think that Buenos Aires is full of surprises, even as of always being on and about in the scene or the clubs for years, but still, there's always something popping out or maybe a new DJ, a new venue. I think that, at least for me, my favorite going out day is a really nice day of work, or I'll produce, or we had meetings or something like a productive day, and then maybe we're already together, maybe we meet up later and I don't know, we just have dinner together, maybe go out, maybe something and just go out. I think right now my favorite club is De Seo. It’s a really pretty, very synthetic club, but it's always fun. We also like to keep it safe, like cool places.

Q:

Oh yeah, my favorite club used to be Puticlu which is an underground gay club, fully gay. They have a dark room in the bag where people are doing shit. It used to be my favorite because you would go on a Wednesday at 10am,  and there's already people dancing and super sweaty and it's underground and that's super cool. But then, I feel like I outgrew that vibe, but now De Seo is where it's at for me.

Lately we've been having super packed weekends where it's like, oh, we need to go to this concert, and then we need to play at this place, play a DJ, set for friends, and then they want us to go to this place later, and then the next day we need to play a concert here. It's been super packed between work and friends and social, and I've been liking that energy. 

It's not so good for my throat though, but it's very fun and it's a very lively city where you can just wing the night and it'll be perfect. 

E: 

Yeah, I was going to say that more public clubs. Sometimes my favorite night outs are private after parties with friends. Sometimes maybe one of our friends will play a nice show and they'll have a private after party, a private birthday. I think sometimes those events are one of the funnest too. 

How would you say, the PC music culture and the electronic music culture has developed in the last two years?

Q:

It has gotten super out into the public mainstream lately. I feel like two or three years ago if you would to ask what is PC music or hyperpop even people wouldn't have know, but maybe it's like right now, it's super popular and I feel like people like Sophie, A.G Cook, they made the pathway for the music that we do right now. With the success of [Charli XCX’s] Brat and everything, it really put PC music on the radar, on the spot, people looking at what A.G Cook has been doing for years, and that's wonderful. 

I really feel like it has also made an impact on Latin music in a way between normal PC music and Latin music. That's why I think, for example, Boy Toy was such a success. It took a couple of things from that and then newer sounds and sounds that are characteristic to just us, and it just really connected.

For example, Brazilian Funk and everything was on the radar for a big hot minute, and I feel like a lot of Latin artists are more and more daring to use digital sounds. So I feel like it's evolving and bringing more people in as well as being more out there, and being more exposed. 

E:

I would definitely say that it's a thing that's gestating still specifically here in Latin America. Well, if we talk about where we live, Argentina, I would say that obviously we are both music nerds. So for years we have been looking into SoundCloud or niches from other countries and stuff, and maybe we didn't find that here in our hometown. I'm saying it's just gestating because now, it's starting to appear as a little seed of those things in the bigger eye. It did exist before, but very, very, very underground, just to a really small scene of people consuming each other's music, and that was it. 

I think also being a party girl or whatever is getting trendier. So maybe you go to a party and you see a DJ set and people are actually paying attention to the music that the DJ is playing. Maybe a few years ago, at least here, maybe that wasn't such an attention thing, and now it's more about the music.

How do you find the balance in your life? What helps you recuperate so you can come back fresh after a weekend? 

E:

At least for me personally, I know Candela too, we're thinking about music all the time. Literally for us, everything is musical. We also talk a lot about this, a lot of our inspiration is not just other musical artists, it's things that we live. Sometimes we go out and we hear a banger drum pattern in one of the tracks that a DJ played at the club, and then maybe we ride on public transportation and they have this fire alarm. We have a lot of inspiration from our day to day, maybe not so obvious references, but the things that could be obvious for the type of music that we make. Living life is an integral part of being an artist and being inspired young, but you're always in both kinds of places at the same time, especially when you're an artist, a lot of times you just live in your own head, but you're also in places and doing stuff and talking to people. So it's easy at least to take that stimulus to make music. 

Q: 

Yeah, I feel like the EQ sound has much more to do with being a nerd, a music nerd, a production nerd, whatever. Yes, and also just being a girl in a city and figuring things out, I think going out is a really big part of that because it's where you get to get loose and have fun. Also, what Laura said in going through the motions of life and just going with the flow of whatever you're feeling in the moment. For me, also, I've been going through this stage of being [behind]  closed doors during the week and preserving my energy, even my social energy, if you're all the time seeing people during the weekend, during the week, I like to sit back and relax and go back to my own artistry and have my own ideas and what I thought of the weekend, whatever. And also, I try to stay sober most of the time, and that's really fun and inspiring for me. 

I get to see the party from almost a bird's eye view for me, and it's very fun. You get to notice little things, like subtle things that I feel like sometimes for me, they spark things in my thoughts. So that's for me personally. But being a girl is just also knowing when to chill. 

And so when you're listening to music, is there a specific body part where you feel music?

E:

I think personally, maybe my head, I went through an emo phase when I was younger. Obviously I never stopped being emo. Once you're emo you never stop, I’m very much a metal head. I love that type of music. So I think that if my head bangs, even if it's pop music or electronic music, if it has that to me, angsty energy or eclectic energy that hardcore music has, even if it's pop, that for me is something that indicates through my body that this is good. 

Q:

So for me, my feet, that's so funny because I like to feel it. If you feel the bass on your feet, it is like, this is what I'm looking for, the lower frequencies that you get and you get to feel it, if you feel it in your feet, it's the right perfect frequency. You can feel it in your whole body then, or your chest basing your chest. It's so cool. And also my hands, I feel like, because just feeling things vibrate, it reminds you that, oh, you're working with flowing air and flowing energy. I also used to play the piano, so I feel like I get to just put it in my hands. 

Your visuals for EQ are really refined, how did you come to form this aesthetic?

E:

I would separate this into two things. I think there is a collective trendy thing going on right now with the 2000s revival. It's been going on for a few years, but I think that collectively trends are changing in certain niches of the 2000s. We go niche hopping all the time, but even though it is obviously good for us, it is kind of trendy and stuff. It does come from personal experience. I mean, we're both babies of the early 2000s so a lot of it comes from real nostalgia. It's not manufactured, it's not trend based. Only things that we had, I mean, the iPods we had used for shoots were her old iPod, for example. I also had some, but they just disappeared.

We sat down and thought about how to build a whole world for the project that wasn't just music, because we actually do have a really big personal interest in visuals and aesthetics, even film. 

It was just important for us to make the images match the music and vice versa. Also for them to they have to just simply feel good, but they do have a personal philosophical experience, real life background of what it means to us. There's also this thing that when you talk about recession indicators, and I guess the eternal nostalgia of going back to maybe a millennium that was promised to us when we were children, and maybe we looked at, we have a lot of influences from old Apple commercials, technology now. It was a moment in time in history where a lot of things were promised, and maybe nowadays in 2025, you see the world and these things, these promises are totally broken. So it's just a fantasy world that we can live in. 

Q:

Yeah. I think we made an effort to build the images according to our vision, until we what had in our minds. We went out of our way and put so much effort into every cover, every part of our visuals, because I feel like, in this modern day and age where everything is that AI, is that NFT, can you buy that? Did you just generate that? You took a thousand pictures with your iPhone and you can choose one and just upload it and sell it, whatever. I feel like images are so volatile right now. I feel like we went out so far to create this ideal world. It was really rewarding to us to be working with, a lot of our photographers were women. We put a lot of our friends as extras in a lot of shoots, and it was really rewarding to just go out of our way to create a community and to build our image alongside our friends. That takes it out of the trend as well. It's like, yeah, we're trendy and we're into fashion and we're tapped in, whatever, but we're also creating a community around us and bringing everybody in and working with real people, with real emotions and with real ideas. It's been super rewarding to work in that way. 

I can promise you that nothing we've ever made with EQ is AI, and I can promise you, we've never used ChatGPT. 

From the EP, which one is the most ‘E’ and which is the most ‘Q’? Do you distinguish the two?

E:

We both have our favorite picks and they are changing all the time. At least for me, if I think about the most E song, it's probably Subway Lullaby because it is inspired by bands like Korn or Limp Bizcut or whatever. Kind of has a new-metalish vibe, which is the music I grew up with. So I would say that it's just, it is a little treat for my inner child to have that aesthetic of music.

Q:

For me, I feel like I resonated so hard with the 7’ Mix. It’s actually my favorite right now.

I grew up studying music and doing weird experimental electroacoustic compositions, writing music and melodies and harmonies and I feel like that song, the levels it reaches of sound and rhythm, it's a very nerdy thing. 

Lately it has been my favorite and I feel like that's what I relate to right now. 

We also recorded the bass on my synth. It's a very niche Compact where we recorded the bass for Seven Minute Mix and for Subway Lullaby Laura played the bass so I feel like it has our elements. 

EQ, TRACK BY TRACK

“Boytoy"

The project begins with Boytoy, the jus ad rem infatuation of a modern love story. It’s also the first song that was released by the duo in 2024. It begins the EP with the soundbite ‘I love music,’ and introduces us to ‘EQ vision.’ A drug-laid admission of love, an admission of self-doubt, and a midnight admission of regret, it’s all out on the confession booth of the dance floor.  

“B.S.A.S (Si Alguna Vez te Sentis Sola de Noche)”

Perhaps my personal favorite from the EP, it’s a track that begins with a pitch bent voice. A memoriam to night life in Buenos Aires, it’s a euphoric track that takes us all the way to the sunrise where the dancing doesn’t stop. 

“Girls My Age”

Slowing down the tempo of the EP, Girls My Age is a wandering track, literally and figuratively. A tribute to the idea of a flâneuse - these sightseeing women who walk the city streets without destination. At times, the idea of walking down the street and reclaiming public space is rather controversial.... almost as controversial as getting older as a female presenting person.... 

“Subway Lullaby”

If Girls My Age was the fantasy of meandering through an unfamiliar city, then the following track on Subway Lullaby is the moment that you realize that you forgot your subway shirt, or that you’re on a train car with just men. It’s a metal-inspired lullaby and internal monologue that follows you from the street and over the turnstiles. 

“EQetamine”

Beginning with the ostinati of ‘hard-drugs, hard ha-hard drugs,’ EQetamine is the literal k-hole of the EP. It’s the 3am of the dancefloor where you show up to the afters and your friend is already off her face on the highest surface possible. What the hell, sure. 

“7’ Mix”

Ending the EP as it began - the 7 minute mix is a sample gold mine complemented by Qiri’s compact synth. It’s an homage to the ethos that runs through EQ’s discography: I LOVE MUSIC!