It’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.”
Three 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.”
When they released their debut single in 2024, the sultry neoperreo anthem ‘Boytoy’, the Getty-inspired cover art went viral on social media, prompting Mattera to quit her degree. She was happy to leave, owing to the stressful environment of being the only woman in most of her classes: “That was really taxing to me. I was already feeling quite alienated in music; the nerd music world was more alienating. I really needed a community.”
“By not making traditional ‘Buenos Aires’ music like rock, Latin, reggaeton or even techno, we’re making a point: this also is Latin music” – Qiri
EQ’s music transports you to the chaos and sisterhood of the Buenos Aires underground. ‘B.S.A.S’ is a sleek Baltimore club-inspired track documenting a typical night out, while on ‘EQtamine’, the duo sassily proclaim: “You want the DJ? Bitch, I’m the DJ!” By and large, EQ’s vision of Buenos Aires pulls more from industrial club influences than popular Latin genres like reggaeton, which they acknowledge is unusual.
“It’s our interpretation within our eyes,” Ferreira muses. “Maybe certain people from the Northern Hemisphere expect Latin music to just be ‘Latin rhythms’. But we don’t have the pressure to fit ourselves in a box that wasn’t even created by us. If we want to do rhythms that are more regional, we can take them. If we want to take rhythms that inspire us from other places, we’ll also do it.”
Mattera adds: “By not making traditional ‘Buenos Aires’ music like rock, Latin, reggaeton or even techno, we’re making a point: this also is Latin music. I really feel there’s a lot of people in my city that feel represented by that.”
In between these moments of hedonism, EQ explore a darker side to nightlife. The dreamy ‘Girls My Age’ observes women exhausted from societal beauty standards, but determined to enjoy life, while ‘Subway Lullaby’ sees the pair unite against perverts over gnashing guitars and alarms: “Ugh! I wanna spit at them / I wanna punch them!” That darkness also threatens the queer club ecosystem EQ have grown up in. They name-check clubs like Deseo and HiedraH who “prove a point in resisting the far right ascension in Buenos Aires, which is really comforting.”
There’s other venues the girls could mention, they add, if they weren’t shut thanks to president Javier Milei. Since his election in 2023, Argentina has experienced an inflation crisis of 211 per cent. Along with his Trumpian social politics and alleged crypto coin scam, just 35.5 per cent of Argentinians approved of Milei last May.
“Things are getting expensive and people aren’t coming to your club because they don’t have any money, so you have to close,” Mattera explains, adding that Milei has defunded plenty of left-wing art collectives as part of his presidency. “Argentina has always been a very forward-thinking country in Latin America when it comes to human rights, and now all of that’s been defunded.”
Their DANCE. RESIST. REPEAT. flag, the pair add, serves as a stark reminder to the audience of the very real stakes they face at home. “In Argentina, you don’t realise that you are fighting for a place when you are actively part of this night circuit,” Mattera says. “It’s very important to take care of that. People don’t realise how important nightlife is in Buenos Aires, and how good it is for our culture. It’s not just fun, there’s thousands of jobs.”
EQ say it’s rare for an Argentinian act to become successful outside South America, and they’re determined to make it work. Mattera remembers working as a hotline operator and translator at a medical centre, saving up to pay for their ‘Boytoy’ photoshoot. Now, they’re being welcomed into the world with open arms – all through the power of girlhood.
“When we started making this music, we were very young,” Mattera explains. “There’s a lot of being able to play, having that freedom to build your image and who you want to be. I feel like that resonates with being a girl – not to infantilise ourselves, but I like to think that we’re ever-growing.”
EQ’s ‘Girls My Age (Nick León “Adictiva” Remix)’ is out now via Fractura.