четверг, 28 мая 2015 г.

El Relevo Aleman "Königsberg"

El Relevo Aleman "Königsberg" (p)2014
The third long play of the Madrid-based rock outfit El Relevo Aleman is their most complex work to-date. The frontman Jose Carlos Peña is also the drummer for the perfect '2nd wave emo' band Cusin. In El Relevo Aleman he is backed by all-female rhythm section that consists of Christina Arroyo (bass) and Zutoia Rios (drums). This trio plays tight guitar-driven rock music that stands both legs in American 90s/00s indie/alternative movement. So, if you're into such bands as Archers Of Loaf, Built To Spill and especially Pedro the Lion - then "Königsberg" with its angular guitar parts brought to the foreground of the mix and the quiet but emotional vocals is definitely your piece of pie. Since the roots of my music tastes were fed by the same fertile soils (before my 'rock español' immersion I was - and still is - the die-hard fan of aforementioned bands and lots of their peers) I shouldn't have missed this album. Luckily I discovered it by a chance a couple of months ago and quickly fell for it because in comparison with the band's previous efforts "Etica Protestante" and "El Mundo Antiguo" it sounds better produced and more mature, and contains more memorable songs.

By the way, it was nice to see Bottomless Pit in their Facebook 'Interests' section - this band formed by Silkworm members Andy Cohen and Tim Midgett after the drummer Michael Dahlquist untimely passing rarely appears in someone's lists.

The best tracks: El Equipo Español de Curling, El Terror Bolchevique, La Gravitacion Universal, Los Visigodos


вторник, 26 мая 2015 г.

Jorganes "Science Was Wrong Before"

Jorganes "Science Was Wrong Before" (p)2015 El Hombre Bala
Can you imagine how many great music acts are there on Canary Islands? A lot of, really. For me it's like there's something special in the atmosphere: all you need is just to wake up, open your eyes, breathe the air - and you're already high on fresh ideas.
"Science Was Wrong Before" is another bright example of Tenerife-bred electronica released by local label El Hombre Bala that stands at the forefront of Canarian indie surge. Juanjo Jorganes masterfully mixes, crosses and pairs 'Chicago school' trance, Ninja Tune-esque electronica-based free jazz, lazy beats and analogue noise to the perfect results. Unlike his pal/labelmate Postman whose strangely attractive abstract/break-core experiments stand in relative contradiction to pop phenomenon, the music of Jorganes showcases enough pop elements to dance along to or at least to nod your head to the beat.

The conclusion is as follows: the beat, the scratch, multiple reminiscences in the range from Leftfield ("Unprotected", "Long Coffee") to Dilated Peoples ("Flames") and a lot of good vibrations inbetween.

The best tracks: Unprotected, Flames, Sun & Sand, Watch



LISTEN/BUY

вторник, 19 мая 2015 г.

(lo:muêso) "Hoidên Limother Petity Vefuckêr"

(lo:muêso) "Hoidên Limother Petity Vefuckêr" (p) 2015 Aloud Music
The new effort of (lo:muêso) starts with 11 minutes long "Katazome Falls" where it takes almost 4 minutes to desarrolar from quasi-ambient intro to powerful & melodic shoegaze explosion. The next "Amarillo Mortimer" is compulsive emo/screamo/post-hardcore track that can beat the shit out of anyone who isn't warned. The third track "Black Scissors" contains more than 17 minutes of creepy post-everything guitar noodling replaced by the bursts of A Place To Bury Strangers-like noise. So, how many bands do you know that can start the album with the tracks of 11, 6 and 17 minutes duration? It quickly becomes apparent that the members of this Barcelonian quartet do not want to fetter their creative visions - the compromise is not their aim, and to pleasure the occasional listener isn't one of their commitments.
The album's title consists of the words "hope", "identity", "live" and "motherfucker" mixed to relatively unpronounceable results. The strange creature on the cover also wants to tell you something. Possibly, his words are like these: "Beware! This album is the mindwrenching mixture of post-hardcore, metal and shoegaze. And it's so addictive anyway!" What should I add... the fresh air in the stagnated forests of guitar-driven indie rock can be quite addictive, yes.

The best tracks: Katazome Falls, The Swindle, DeadSeaHorses

BANDCAMP

среда, 13 мая 2015 г.

Presentando La Banda. Fifteen Years Old

Meet Solange Jacobs, the architect.
Under Fifteen Years Old alias this Lima, Peru native/Barcelona inhabitant creates the fragile soundscapes accompanied by the lyrics referring to controversy, self-sacrifice, sex, and politics.

Fifteen Years Old "The Image Lovers" (p)2011
Fifteen Years Old "Abecedario" (p)2015



I'm here to propose the following triangulation to understand what it's like: 1) thin as ice vocal vibrations of Julie Cruise 2) the quieter moments of the provocative tales of Jenny Hval  (or the most adventurous anti-pop excerpts in Bjork's career); 3) 'I-wear-my-heart-on-the-sleeve' artistic approach and short spoken-word excercises of Miranda July.

The first short album "The Image Lovers" is sung in English, and I'd call it more accessible for the 'untrained' ear. The tracks here really are the songs: though they are hardly about the classic 'verse-chorus-verse' template, they have the clear and distinct melodies you can easily be nodding to.

"Abecedario" is far more based on intuition, far more about impromptu feel, and far more minimalist and uncalculated. It feels like these crawling, nervous, fractured hymns of vulnerability, possession and sacrifice sung by Sol's childish vocals draw the pieces of transition from 'girl' to 'woman'. Sol here abandons the cyclic structure of composition completely, leaving the things flow freely from point 'A' to point 'Somewhere not here'. As a part of audiovisual performance act this album would work the best, but even being separated from the visual component it may give you the right impression. There's a certain complaint of the reviewer used when the album is way too long to feel comfortable with: "This could be the greater EP". For "Abecedario" I should declare the opposite: "This could be the greater full lenght" because the music of this kind needs time to embrace you, and now when you are just feeling embraced - all of a sudden, the music stops.

"Performance Poetry, Political Pop, Experimental Pop, Moon Music, and Autobiographical" - these tags Sol uses to describe her own path in music. I consider "moon music" the key one because her music is as trembling and dizzy as the moon shadows are.

Fifteen Years Old on Tumblr
Fifteen Years Old on BANDCAMP
Fifteen Years old on Facebook

Muchas gracias a Sol Jacobs por contactarme y invitarme al mundo de Fifteen Years Old

четверг, 7 мая 2015 г.

Diego Hdez "Autotrophic Music"

Diego Hdez "Autotrophic Music" (p)2015 Foehn
The new album of Canarian-born singer/songwriter Diego Hernandez (the participant of folk band Keiko as well as the dub orchestra Pachumba) follows the steps of his first solo record "Small Songs For New Beginnings" (p)2012 also on Foehn. It's a free-form 'stream of consciousness' psycho folk - sometimes dreamy, sometimes noisy, sometimes trippy. Being seemingly unstructured for an unprepared ear, these songs are constructed of tiny sounds (hisses, clicks and cracks, etc) placed here and there using athmosphere as glue. But though the parts are glued by such the fragile (read: unreliable) substance, the music never stands on the verge of falling apart.
There's nothing about 'introversion as amusement'. It's not about amusement at all. It's about thinking, it's about looking inward, it's about pulling together the things that you'd never thought to be pulled together.

The best tracks: Come The Summer, 9 to 5, The Map, Heisenberg