B-Side Guys

Nico Tiparescu maps his nomadic history onto circuit boards in “Pulp,” the latest single from his Decimal Decade project. The Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist, whose path from Venezuela through Spain and Chile to the American Midwest reads like a lesson in cross-cultural synthesis, has created something that pulses with the electric current of perpetual movement.

After nearly abandoning music altogether—gear almost sold, creative spirit nearly extinguished—Tiparescu has returned with a track that transforms personal displacement into sonic placement. “Pulp” doesn’t just mix electronic and organic elements; it treats them as different dialects of the same language, each one enriching the other’s vocabulary.

The production carries the watermark of Tiparescu’s varied musical education. From hearing Deftones in his uncle’s Chilean tattoo parlor to absorbing Chicago’s genre-fluid scene, these influences don’t announce themselves so much as hover like friendly ghosts in the mix. His falsetto floats above woozy synthesizers that seem to bend time itself, creating pockets of suspension in an otherwise propulsive track.

Here’s a musician who understands dance music not as a genre but as a physical response to displacement—the body moving because it must, finding rhythm in perpetual transition. The synth hooks write themselves in neon against the night sky, while the underlying groove maintains the steady pulse of a traveler’s heartbeat.

What’s remarkable is how Tiparescu manages to make precision feel like abandon. Each element in “Pulp” has been meticulously placed, yet the overall effect is one of joyful release. It’s the sound of someone who has learned that control and chaos aren’t opposites but partners in the same dance.

This single, part of his debut EP Soon To Evolve, represents more than just a musical evolution—it’s the sound of someone reclaiming their relationship with creation itself. After stepping away from collaborative projects that left him creatively depleted, Tiparescu has found his voice by embracing every accent in his musical vocabulary.

The track’s momentum comes not just from its rhythmic drive but from its sense of discovery. Each section unfolds like a new city being explored for the first time, with surprises tucked into sonic side streets and architectural flourishes that reveal themselves only after multiple visits.

These four minutes feel like intercepted transmissions from all the parallel lives Tiparescu might have lived—the Venezuelan rhythms that could have been, the Romanian melodies that might have flourished, the Peruvian percussion that could have dominated. Instead, they’ve all found their place in this singular fusion.

What emerges is a track that treats genre like geography—as something to be explored rather than conquered. “Pulp” doesn’t land in the sweet spot between Radiohead and Primal Scream so much as it draws a new map where both destinations are possible simultaneously.