Rock Español A Través De Los Ojos De Un Ruso: Capsula

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понедельник, 23 декабря 2019 г.

The Best Of 2019. TOP50. 01-10

I’m curious what people may think about being included into my annual poll. The people, you know, who are in the list and who have no idea, basically, why. It goes like this: one day Facebook informs them of a post that mentions their album as a national TOP50 entry, and they guess, what does it mean? So, how should we react to this? Is it good or is it kind of freaky? Who’s that guy? Is he credible? Let’s see, who he is. He is from where? Russia? The guy from Russia has an opinion on what’s going on here in Spain – sounds kinda strange, doesn’t it? What’s the matter?

Or it goes like: ‘Okaaaaay, guys. We’re in somebody’s annual poll now, and this is great by default!’

I’m just curious, really.

So, here you are. The best albums of the year. The most delicious part of the TOP50. The Big Ten.

Merry Christmas!

10. Atencion Tsunami «Vltra»

(p)Records del Mundo

BNDCMP

The sounds of the alternative dance halls of the 22nd century. The danceable rock music with no dance invented for it as of now.

9. Exfan «Exfan»

(p)Gatuela

SPTF

All of Patricia Escoin's ongoing projects (Los Amantes, Lula and Exfan) deserve nationwide praise, I swear.

8. Furious Monkey House «Love, Scum & Dust»

(p)Esmerarte/ Atresmusica/ Universal Music Spain

SPTF

Somewhere in the middle of the first track of "Love, Scum & Dust" I was like: 'Holy fuck, how come I have never heard of them before? They’re so cool!'

7. Yo, Estratosferico «Limbo»

(p)self-released

BNDCMP

The struggling band that deserves more attention than it's got now. The creators of the last decade's most underrated great song ("?motin?") have got another bunch of great songs to be proud of.

6. Capsula «Bestiarium»

(p)Gaztelupeko Hotsak/ Vicious Circle/ Dynamo Tapes

BNDCMP

Their strongest release since "Solar Secrets", as simple as it gets.

5. Sunday German Flowers «2019»

(p)Discos Delejos

BNDCMP

Put your headphones on and float away from your daily grind with this beautiful and stylistically undefinable record.

4. Chavalan «Un Aire Visible»

(p)Mascarpone Discos

BNDCMP

The great successor of now-defunct Betunizer. From my point of view it's even better than "Gran Veta', the generally recognized apex of Betunizer’s career.

3. Los Punsetes «Aniquilacion»

(p)Mushroom Pillow

SPTF

Without a doubt the most cohesive album of the renowned band. It seemed to me like something was always missing on their previous releases. They were always quite good with the emphasis on ‘quite’. Now all the parts of the puzzle are on their right places finally.

2. Holywater «Arboreal»

(p)Ernie

BNDCMP

Take any cool southern rock-meets-grunge record (Dead Confederate's "Sugar" first came to my mind), replace the electric guitars with the acoustic ones and then clean the sound off to kill that druggy fog - and you'll get the idea of what "Arboreal" sounds like.

1. Yawners «Just Calm Down»

(p)La Castanya

BNDCMP

For the most part of the year it was all pretty clear about the number one. Not only the best album but also the best song ("La Escalera").

11 – 20

воскресенье, 27 августа 2017 г.

#Sonorama20. The Report. Part Two

When we left Pin&Pon djs’ session at 02:30 we felt almost dead. But after we came to our beloved Kinedomus (surely the best place to enjoy Sonorama) and had a good sleep in the dead silence we felt our batteries fully recharged. So at 12:00 sharp we stood on the Plaza de Sal waiting for the new grace to fall upon us.

10/08/17. The Morning. Main location: Plaza de Sal

Gimnastica were the perfect band to start the morning right. Their songs were melodic, and the band was brimming with positive energy.

Apartamentos Acapulco are widely considered the new hopes of Spanish shoegaze. They even come close to the “new Los Planetas” tag. In the middle of their performance it was slightly spoiled by the problems with the gear but these problems were not so crucial as those for Dorian last night, so the band continued without slowing down. As many other shoegaze bands, live Apartamentos Acapulco sounded louder than on albums. For me they seemed closer to Modelo de Respuesta Polar than to Los Planetas (it’s neither good nor bad as I adore them both).

Then Alberto Y Garcia stepped onto. They were good but this was not our kind of music, so after 4-5 songs we started roaming around the old town. As the most people gathered in Plaza del Trigo, the tiny streets around were empty almost completely, and when we stepped onto another callejon we saw a bunch of people with some luggage. Initially shocked, we recognized the musicians of Leon Benavente in these people. I couldn’t help but rushed to them with my classic ‘sorry men we’re your fans from Russia, we’ve got all your releases physically, could we please make a photo with you!’ They seemed having fun of this situation, and they told us they would be this day’s concierto secreto. We expressed our doubts of being able to attend this as there were so many people on Plaza, and wished them the good journey, as we knew that this day they should fly to Tenerife to take part in Phe Festival.

After this unexpected but extremely pleasant encounter we returned to Plaza de Sal to see Willis Drummond. Willis Drummond are from the French part of Basque Country but they’re not considered foreign band as they are singing in basque and are managed by Panplona-based booking agency Black Izar having many concerts all across Spain. The band played the highly energetic show which I summed up with the words: "The best post-hardcore possible". Now I can only repeat that.

Fortunately, we managed to find ourselves a place on the overcrowded Plaza del Trigo to see Leon Benavente. They proved one more time that they are probably the best live act of Spain #rightnow. They’ve got the magic.

10/08/17. The Night. Location: Recinto ferial

Another band to have the same kind of magic (though staying on the lower level of publicity) is Yo, Estratosferico. The Guadalajara-based quartet mixes guitar-driven indie rock with post-hardcore angularity and 2nd wave emo dramatic tension to the perfect results. Additionally, these four musicians are the great performers. And the fact that rare person knows about it causes me real physical pain. ‘We’re just trying to get better with every show’ – Jose told us when we met him the next day. But even if Yo, Estratosferico are not intended to gather thousands, they deserve much more spectators than they got now cos they are not another faceless band.

Ivan Ferreiro presented his most recent release “Casa” ((p)2017 Warner). As for me, his two latest albums (“Val Minor – Madrid” and the aforementioned “Casa”) contain good songs but no hits comparable to “Turnedo” or “NYC” (with possible exception of "Pajaro Azul"). So the show was somehow the reflection of it. It was 100% alive and kicking - but I'm still dreaming about Ivan's concert that would include the rocking numbers like “Cancion Humeda” or “Paraisos Perdidos”.

After having some wine in VIP zone listening to Coque Malla who was performing on Aranda stage we decided to skip the Sidonie’s show (as the considerable crowd seemingly hard to enter already gathered there before the main stage) in favor of having ourselves more wine and listening to it from afar. Then we trod our path to the Burgos stage. At the moment when we came Flamingo Tours were finalizing their set. On the first line right at the security bars we met Rodrigo Valiente from The Trunks. I warned him that I’m going to shout all the Radiohead tracks out as loud as I can, and as I got no musical voice it might cause him pain in the ears. He told me it’s OK – but in the middle of the set he disappeared without saying anything, so I still have the fear I annoyed him to the core with my crooked screams.

Paranoid Android was some kind of coverband supergroup consisting of the members of Igloo, Eladio y Los Seres Queridos and Rufus T. Firefly and playing the songs of “OK Computer” (in fact their program included numbers from “Pablo Honey” and “Kid A” as well). All these people gathered onstage could make it too chaotic to perform so the show was divided onto some sections led by different bands. It started with Igloo, then Eladio Santos and his band stepped into with their two-song sequence. After that Victor and Julia from Rufus appeared onstage to play some songs including “Idiotheque” from “Kid A”. The show was finalized with Igloo covering “Let Down” and “Creep”. All three bands did the best they could creating one of the most interesting events of the fest.

The next point of interest in our schedule was the performance of Niños Mutantes but when we escaped the Burgos stage we saw the largest crowd we had ever witnessed before the second-rank stage, so it was apparent we had no chance to see Niños Mutantes from any proper place. Disappointed we went to VIP zone to have ourselves some beer or calimocho (and we had it, yeah!) and to wait for the moment when we could go for gaining two good places before Xoel Lopez in fair competition with other festivaleros. Right after Niños Mutantes went offstage, and the whole crowd started migrating to Ribera, we came to the far left of Aranda stage and settled down there in couple of meters from the security bar. Not ideal but quite appropriate.

As we were intended to wait here more than 45 minutes, I escaped the location to see what was happening at Burgos stage where Capsula were paying their homage to the late David Bowie. Capsula is another band whose live performances you shouldn’t miss. I stayed there for 15 minutes, and these 15 minutes were fantastic.

Earlier it was declared that Xoel Lopez would play the set of songs based on his Deluxe past. In fact it was 50/50 Deluxe and Xoel. Everybody would expect him to perform "Que No" and "Historia Universal" - what he surely did. Other ones - like "Cielo de Madrid" and especially "See You in London" were the relative surprises. Xoel performed being backed by the full band that included trumpets, sax and percussion. Closer to the end of the set he stopped singing and revealed that 20th anniversary coincided with his own 40th birthday now. While he was talking Javier Ajenjo entered the stage and made his heartfelt congratulations to the old friend.