Photo by Fissura

Comprising of Andrea P Latorre and Sergi Algiz, Spanish duo SEMIOTICS DEPARTMENT OF HETERONYMS have realised their promise and made their best album yet in ‘Rider’.

Commonly known by the abbreviation SDH, the pair started releasing music as members of post-punk band WIND ATLAS who by their final album ‘An Edible Body’ sounded like there was an electronic act waiting to escape, as the 2025 interim single ‘Threshold’ would later prove.

SDH released their self-titled debut in 2018 which has since been reissued by their current label Artoffact Records. 2023’s ‘Fake Is Real’ with potent songs like ‘Balance’ and ‘Talk In Dreams’ went out search of nightclubs where the dress code specified mischievous EBM and electronic psychedelia.

The new album showcases further growth and with their dark but accessible songs possessing a club-friendly gothique rich in anxious emotional tension, this “crash body music” is intended to be heard after the impact with “Bodies exposed to external forces, subjected to repeated impacts, and evaluated after the damage”. Everything sounds as if each track were a test of endurance.

On behalf of SDH, Andrea P Latorre spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about their creative journey to date…

You mentioned on social media that with ‘Rider’, you “composed most of this album during a turbulent time when, frankly, it’s hard to hold onto hope”, were these personal matters or more existential?

Both. Obviously we are in a turbulent and terrifying time where neoliberalism is clearly failing the most vulnerable individuals on this planet in a resounding way. Faced with this situation, it is complicated to keep acting as if nothing is happening, or to keep releasing music and playing as if nothing were wrong — but somehow it is the only thing we have left. The little good that remains. While we keep resisting and fighting, making music is still something we can do for free and in a free way. We are also going through a complicated time as individuals; everything becomes harder and more uphill as the years go by, especially for a DIY band — but if we are still here, I suppose there is some inner force, or a force of some kind, that demands it of us.

How do you look back on your previous full-length album ‘Fake Is Real’, do you see ‘Rider’ as a natural progression? What in the creative approach was different with the new record?

Yes, I think everything we do is a natural progression of what came before. Not in a deliberate way — we don’t compose like that — but from a much more intuitive place. It has always happened to us that we are unconsciously searching for more precise ways of expressing what we sense. I can’t put it any other way. For me, the approach has been much freer. Sometimes, when you are a small, under-resourced band from Spain, the effort you have to make is so titanic that it is easy to lose your way and forget why you do things. It’s understandable — it comes from exhaustion — but with ‘Rider’, I feel that we have pushed ourselves to do what we truly wanted to do, which is no easy thing. Even so, I feel we can still be even freer.

Did Spain’s own dark 20th Century history have any influence in your thinking for ‘Rider’?

I mean… I think that, whether you like it or not, we are all influenced by the place where we grew up, for better and for worse. Not only by the Spanish Civil War and the authoritarian dictatorship — which lasted a long time, ended very few years ago, and left us in a state of complete isolation from the rest of the world — but also by our history: as a colonizing empire, by an exacerbated Catholic Christianity. All of that exists, and it is absurd to think that it doesn’t form part of who you are, or that you don’t react to it — in our case, by rejecting it. I think all of that defines you, yes.

Photo by Fissura

Do you think being based in Barcelona offers you a unique perspective in that many of world flashpoints are all around you?

Yes. I am from Valencia, but I moved to Barcelona very young, at 19, and without a doubt, my perspective on the world — and, I would like to say, my openness and my musical knowledge — is thanks to having grown up as a young adult in a bigger city that was more open to the world. Valencia is fantastic in many ways (I have now come back to live here), but I wouldn’t trade for anything having spent 12 years in a city that gave me the best in terms of music, literature, (free) education, culture… also the worst, socially and economically, but I am kind of grateful for that too.

So was the standalone single ‘Threshold’ in 2025 an important transitional recording in the lead up to making ‘Rider’?

Actually, no. Threshold was a song we made for our former band WIND ATLAS which was more post-industrial à la Chris & Cosey, COIL, PTV… but it did make sense to us that the single should be something unusual for SDH, not so dancefloor-oriented.

How did the car crash metaphors in the songs on ‘Rider’ come into being?

It all came together in a fairly organic way. We are both obsessed with the movie ‘Crash’ (the good one), and on top of that, I personally had a very serious motorcycle accident that left me unable to walk for a year — so pain and collisions are things I think about often and that are part of my life. Also, for some reason, when we proposed the concept of the album to the people at Fissura who did the cover design, they themselves suggested that the cover should feature a dummy — one of those mannequins used in crash tests. Everything came together in a very organic way.

Was the intensity of the composing and recording affecting your personal well-being, like having insomnia or dreams in English, that kind of thing?

Yes. In previous records there is more novelization or intellectualization — ‘Rider’ is a very visceral album that draws heavily from my own experiences. Obviously, what is real? I think fake is real and vice versa — that is, every construct is fictional and every fiction is true insofar as it produces realities — but yes, the writing of this album uncorked something that plunged me into some very dark months that I have found quite hard to come out of.

With the ‘Rider’ song and the album in general, you show off a diverse vocal range, not just from an octave point of view but timbre, tone and style… what is the process in deciding how to vocalise a song?

There is no process. That is, there is one, but it’s not deliberate. I naturally pay attention to those things without meaning to — I have always been drawn to singing, but even to the way people speak, to phonetics. So I suppose my brain and my voice are unconsciously searching. I have always been afraid of learning too much about vocal techniques, because for me singing is something very natural and fluid and irrational — but I suppose it’s an absurd fear, and that if I knew what I was doing, I would probably do it better, haha.

Who is the target in ‘You’ve Lost The Keys’ or is it multiple?

That I’ll keep to myself. But let’s just say it’s directed at a specific person with whom I have been through some difficult times.

The current trend in dark electronic music production, particularly in “darkwave” appears to be this horrible overblown artificial distortion, but SDH manage to have a punchy energetic emotive sound that doesn’t hurt the ears… what tools, hardware, software and synths are you using to achieve this?

Honestly we hardly listen to darkwave music. Maybe years ago, when we started the band, we were a bit more interested in that style, but nowadays we’re pretty disconnected from the scene. That probably makes us unaware of what bands in this style sound like today. Although I suppose we could be defined as dark electronic music, our influences come from other places, especially on this album. Before ‘Rider’, Sergi sold the little hardware he had and spent all the money on records, and for this album he hasn’t used anything but his computer and various software synthesizers and samples.

‘Dawn Fawn’ shows you still like to be dance friendly, is maintaining this important, especially for live performances?

Yes, and because I genuinely like lightness. It’s difficult because what comes naturally to me is intense, but we always try to laugh at ourselves and take some of the weight out of the idea of making music or writing songs. Even though it is tremendously difficult, I think the best songs in history are, even when dark, light — and they laugh at themselves.

Who is it that you “despise” in ‘Keep My Hands’?

I’ll also keep that to myself, but not everything one writes has an exact correspondence with reality. It’s more complex than that, at least for me.

‘Cruel’ displays a rockier approach and even has guitars! What was this influenced by?

Including guitars on the album was something Sergi had in mind for a long time, and we really would have liked to have included more, but some ideas were left on the back burner… I don’t know what was the direct influence but I remember Sergi told me he listened to the first GARBAGE record for the first time in years when he decided to include guitars… maybe it has something to do. Also, ‘Ultra’ era DEPECHE MODE maybe?

How did the collaboration with LUST FOR YOUTH come about, did you work together or remotely on ‘Night Visit’?

We have known Hannes of LUST FOR YOUTH for a long time, from when we were putting on shows in Barcelona completely DIY. He is one of those friendships that form in moments that are truly genuine and that, somehow, has held on over the years. We have crossed paths here and there but have always kept in touch. It’s one of the things we take away from those years of learning. Basically we made the song and Sergi was certain that it needed Hannes’ voice. We sent him the song, he liked it, wrote lyrics, recorded his part, and then we passed it on to Jack M!R!M! (another good friend we have found along the way over these years of touring) and he produced and mixed it. For me, it gives ‘Night Visit’ a very important dimension. It has been a dream come true.

Photo by Fissura

‘Behind This Dream’ is a glorious club-friendly closer to the album, how did this come together?

Haha, it’s one of my favourite songs on the album. At first I didn’t know how to approach it — the instrumental wasn’t suggesting anything to me — but one day, both of us were at Sergi’s place feeling quite frustrated, after I had finished watching ‘Northern Exposure’ (the series), it just came out of me. Exactly as it is now — the lyrics and the melody. For me it’s one of the best lyrics I have ever written, and I suppose I had been carrying it inside, pressing to get out, for a long time. It’s about disappointments, about unmet expectations, about accepting defeat.

Do you have any favourite songs from ‘Rider’?

My favourites are ‘Behind This Dream’, ‘Something Sublime’… I love ‘Defeated’, ‘Keep My Hands’ and ‘Rider’, I think? Actually I like them all, haha. Sergi has a special fondness for ‘Dawn Fawn’ and ‘Rider’.

It is a good period for dark female-fronted electronic acts, do you feel any affinity to artists like LINEA ASPERA, BOY HARSHER, PARADOX OBCUR, DINA SUMMER, DLINA VOLNY and NNHMN?

Well, yes, of course we like some of those bands! But as I told you before, the truth is we don’t listen to much darkwave — female or male fronted. Personally I listen to a lot of ambient, dark ambient, noise and more experimental electronics, and then pop along the lines of Faye Wong or COCTEAU TWINS. We have always felt very grateful to be part of this scene — the promoters and audiences we have encountered along the way have been absolutely wonderful — but also a little outside of it, both because of the music we make and listen to, and because there aren’t many bands from Spain in it, or that we have come across out there.

What is next for SDH?

We hope to play a lot. We would like to tour Latin America, do another European tour… playing the songs live is what we are most looking forward to right now.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its special thanks to SDH

‘Rider’ is released by Artoffact Records, available as a blue vinyl LP, CD and download from https://semioticsdepartmentofheteronyms.bandcamp.com/

SDH play Liverpool Frogfest on Saturday 15th August 2026, and London’s Moth Club on Saturday 17th October 2026

https://www.facebook.com/semioticsdepartmentofheteronyms/

https://www.instagram.com/sdh_______/

https://secondtooth.com/collections/sdh

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2RA8ReKDkqwdnz1SSkWikD

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
11th May 2026