понедельник, 27 января 2014 г.

How It All Started, or What Brings The Spanish Grief To This Guy?

I have a bunch of columns in my blog now. 'Las Resenas Casuales' is for reviews, 'Los Treinta Principales' is for the best 30 albums of Spanish indie rock on my humble opinion (or, should I better call this 'The 30 Albums That I Truly Love And Adopt The Grandeur Of''?), 'Las Canciones Ocasionales' is for occasional videos which I suppose to be pretty interesting for some reasons. I started an overview of the bands from Canary Islands - the thing which never was made in English before. I dream of starting getting the interviews here. And the question is 'Why?' Or 'What's up to you, guy? What happened to you and made you totally wasted and fucked up? Why, for the God's sake, Spanish indie rock?'
I don't know, really. It was something like that.

Autumn of the year of 2006. 6:55 a.m. I'm sitting in front of the TV set and having my breakfast (I recall this to be some kind of sandwich) before going to the work. And it's 'Euronews' channel on TV. I'm talking with my wife and looking on the screen without a care. The 'music' section of Euronews could be pretty interesting at times. Not this time, possibly, as this morning there is someone called Deluxe. Never been heard about him. The skinny and unshaven guy in black clothes leaves his bycicle at the fence, sits on the low barrier of the playground in the park and starts playing a song with his acoustic guitar to a bunch of occasional beholders. 

And within the next minute I stopped chewing, stopped talking. Even stopped breathing.
I can't recall the song Deluxe (yes, I learned only his alias from this short clip) was playing. I only know that the song changed my life.
The next couple of years I was trying to find in Internet some information about this guy. And it was not an easy target. First af all  - requesting 'Deluxe' in Google you might retrieve the whole lot of useless trash including tons of deluxe versions of everything along with, dunno, VIP prostitutes. The second obstacle - my native town of Tula was not that sort of advanced place of living in terms of Internet expansion. It was, frankly speaking, one step above the dial-up.
The things started changing in the 1st half of 2008 when I moved to Moscow. Having cheap and fast Internet now, I learned that Deluxe was the alias of Galician native Xoel Lopez. But the far more important thing that I learned from all of my unstoppable searches: there were lots of great bands in Spain besides him. I recall Tulsa to be the second Spanish band I fell in love with, and my actual all-time favorites Love Of Lesbian were the third. Then I learned about Mi Pequena Radio, Pumuky, Vetusta Morla, El Nino Gusano, El Hombre Burbuja, Mercromina, etc. There were also lots of Spanish-languaged musical blogs which were mostly piratic ones. Some of them successfully converted into the informational and cultural resources intended for the support of indie musicians: El Mundo De TulsaSenor Pollo leaving their unfair past behind - and some fell into obscurity.

I might start this blog in Spanish - but there are many music blogs in Spanish which are far better than mine (I'm just living too far from the event places - and I'm way too shy to finally start making interviews! - to create really good resource). But almost no one talks about this great scene in other languages.
Why not in Russian? There is a big problem with my countrymen - they like something for free very much and don't like at all to pay for something they used to get for free. But I don't - and never will - give links to mp3s here unless it's free distribution by an artist himself - and it vastly diminishes the importancy of me and my blog in the eyes of an average Russian music lover. I know it sounds a bit snobbish - but that's the fact.

пятница, 24 января 2014 г.

Las Canciones Ocasionales. Russian Red, Najwa

In February two of the most recognizable girls in Spanish rock music - Lourdes Hernandez aka Russian Red and Najwa Nimri aka Najwa - are going to release their new albums. And they decided to support the albums with some kind of pretty strange videos.




понедельник, 20 января 2014 г.

A Brief Overview Of The Canarian Rock, Vol. 1

What makes me wonder about the Canarian music scene the most - is that dichotomy between this impression of the enclave of Heaven on Earth which Canary Islands appear in the eyes of the outside beholder, and the gloomy music this place generates. Really, instead of being as merry and sunny as the beaches of Las Americas or Maspalomas the music is mostly dark and inward-looking and unconventionally structured and convoluted as the bound limbs in the forests of Anaga.

San Borondon
This project of another local band Malcortado participant Jorge Miranda plays folksy and at times quirky yet tuneful lo-fi indie-rock. Their music is simple enough to easily attract a listener while having its own roughnesses and angles left unpolished.

Cabeza Borradora
One of the most longstanding musical projects of the Canary Islands, Cabeza Borradora, named after the David Lynch's enigmatic "Eraserhead" movie, appeared from the hot and heavily inclined streets of La Orotava, Tenerife, in 1993 to spread around the sound of Madchester wearing the influences of Primal Scream, Happy Mondays, New Order and Jesus Jones on their sleeves. The band went on to hiatus in 2000 and stayed silent for almost 13 years when returning in the very end of 2012 with the updated line-up, new concerts schedule and new release named "The Jack Nance EP" planned for 2014.

Malaspecto
The idyosynchratic duo focuses on Casiotone-based cartoon-voiced lo-fi techno pop. The band left several years in hiatus but recently returned to making music and released their reedited 2002 album through the local El Hombre Bala imprint in 2013.

Malcortado
This band from Gran Canaria island pays homage to 90's american indie movement playing loud and fresh indie rock in the vein of Superchunk and others of that generation proving that this type of music is not dated. The band only is to record a full lenght.

GAF & la Estrella De La Muerte
Led by Mladen Kurajica, the loose psychedelic and mostly instrumental combo emerged from Santa Cruz de Tenerife. GAF is another Canarian band well-known on the mainland, having 4 LPs in the background - all issued via Barcelona-based Foehn Records - and gigs in such countries as Japan and Mexico. The most recent album, "Sunriser" (p)2013 has received favourable reviews all over Spain. The centerpiece of this record is the gorgeous 20-something minutes long track "Yannakis" which amalgamated almost all basic elements of GAF's music: dreamy pipes and other winds, trippy translucent guitar drones, athmospheric ambient sounds, quasi-ritual drums - all this comes through lightweight first half of the track twisting and coiling up and down to become the armor-crashing wall of sound in second half. And it makes me recalling little-known space rock bands like Poem Rocket or SIANspheric4.

El Pilar Azul
A solo project of Pumuky's current line-up guitarist Adan Zeus. "El Constante Sin Nombre", the debut longplay of the band, reached #14 in my 'Top30 of 2013' list, but now I think that it should have a bit higher ranking - as long as I'm listening to it on an everyday basis. The slow evolving post-rock-oriented music of rare beauty.

Pumuky
Formerly raised from Ycod de los Vinos, Tenerife, this musical vehicle of Jair Ramirez quickly became the most notable band ever emerged from Canarias. Having 'revolving door' cast of musicians in the band (the only constant member of Pumuky besides Jair is his brother Noe) now Pumukies include Adan Zeus from El Pilar AzulDani Benavides (one-time member of El Pilar Azul, who also has the project of his own, LuzFuturo), Acaymo D and Jose A. Lopez from Malcortado.
Working for several initial years with no visible results, Jair had crystallized his music vision which resulted in building up the sound of his own. The first longplay "De Viaje Al Pais De Las Tormentas"  ("From The Travel To The Country Of Thunders") (p) 2006 was somewhat of a halfway to the perfection. The album had minor impact on the music scene but established Pumuky as 'persons of further interest' as well as allowed the band to make new connections within the scene.
The things roughly changed in a good way in 2009 when the second full lenght named "El Bosque En Llamas" ("The Forest In Flames") entered almost all the year-end national music polls, and along with the mainland longstays Vetusta Morla who released their debut LP "Un Dia En El Mundo" that year Pumuky were marked as the biggest national indie-rock sensations.
The next full lenght effort "Plus Ultra" deserved 2 years of working, and when being released it marked the slight change of the musical direction with the band now mostly focusing on dreampop sound.
Two years later the band released an EP "Pumuky Y El Eterno Femenino" for their label Jabalina Musica 'Dedicatessen' series. So now Pumuky is the band of absolutely unique sound - unique not only for Spain but for the worldwide music scene as well. The nation's property, not less.

Saletile
The ambient noise post-rock/krautrock duo from the town of Los Realejos, Tenerife. They have several EPs ("Trilogia Acustica", "Trilogia Noise", "SALE TILE") in back catalogue, all of them are up for free download from their BC page. The interstellar travels-inspired music of Saletile sounds interesting and innovative and seems to be free from the shortcomings which are common for the music of such type - it doesn't put you into that totally drugged-out state of mind.

A sampler of the actual sounds of Canarian scene you can obtain now from the BC page of local label El Hombre Bala Records.

четверг, 16 января 2014 г.

Las Resenas Casuales. Lendrone "Uno"

Lendrone "Uno" (p)2013 Matapadre Discografica


This is the first full lenght from the Galician experimental rock combo. In the world where Chileans Mostro are the highest extremum of experimentation, and the old 'american underground' pre-post-rock instrumental band Pell Mell is the lowest one, Lendrone with their mixture of complicated with simple and banal with inventing could be some kind of semantic middle.

"Uno" is divided onto two parts by the intermediate segue called "La Mecanique Moderne" which is considerably shorter and quieter than any other track on the album. Before and after the aforementioned track we have the captiously built-up instrumental krautrock-tinged math-rock where the heavy use of syntesizers meets the occasional bursts of noise, overloaded bass lines are beaded on the convoluted rhythmical patterns, and where the plain canvas of a composition can all of a sudden explode with the guitar overdrive.
'The heavy use of synthesizers', 'convoluted rhythmical patterns', 'overloaded bass lines' - these features are the common place for the most of 'experimental-math-noise-jazz-everything else'-fusion bands, and the main thing lays in the surface of the proportions. In case of Lendrone the proportions are definitely right. The trio from La Coruna gives the listener the fascinating trip without taking away the time to rest and breath easily from him.

The best tracks: Don Balon, La Marcha Solar, Methavolante

The digital version of the album you can download from the Matapadre bancamp page or Lendrone BC on the 'name your price' basis.






Los Treinta Principales. #22. Los Planetas "Super 8"

#22. Los Planetas "Super 8" (p)1994 BMG


"Super 8" was not the first experience of planting the contemporary british/american alternative rock sound onto the fruitful lands of Iberian Peninsula. It was not the most successful guitar album of the time in terms of revenue. Arguably, it was the first truly creatively successful effort - successful to such level where it might sin duda compete with the 'inspiration sources'.
But, what is significantly more important, it was the album that stabbed the polemark of the audience attention to the whole (pretty much burgeoning at that time) Spanish scene of guitar-driven music in the vein of american 'smart' alternative rock (in the range from Dinosaur Jr to Mercury Rev) as well as of pre-'Cool Britannia' post-psychedelic quasi-shoegaze model (from Spacemen 3 to Swervedriver).
So, it was not the album that spawned the 'underground movement' - it was the album that started something on macro-level.

The best tracks: Brigitte, Estos Ultimos Dias, De Viaje


вторник, 14 января 2014 г.

Las Resenas Casuales. Manolo Breis "Verna"

Breis "Verna" (p) 2014 Sweet Song Records


Today the singer/songwriter from Murcia Manolo Breis (who ususally appears in public using only his surname) releases his new album called "Verna" less than 10 months after his previous effort "Invisibles" was released.
Breis is not that widely bred in 2000 'detuned guitar/lo-fi sound/high-pitched voice'-kind of singer-songwriter. His songs are fully arranged, and while his musical pallette is not so wide but it is far from minimal as well. Exploring mostly slow-to-middetmpo dynamics, this album is calm and appeased. And from the first listen I get the feeling that the album lacks the song that can stuck in your head for hours and days. But the songs have their good features, like smartly structured "El Timon" or slowly growing up "Malos Tiempos" - and these two songs are definitely amongst the best ones here.

The best tracks: Dame Algo De Ti, Al Amanecer, El Timon, Malos Tiempos

The album can be officially downloaded from HERE for free.

понедельник, 13 января 2014 г.

Las Resenas Casuales. La Maravillosa Orquesta del Alcohol "Quien Nos Va A Salvar?"

La Maravillosa Orquestra Del Alcohol "Quien Nos Va A Salvar?" (p) 2013 Mus Records


To put it shortly, the Burgos-based sextet La Maravillosa Orquestra Del Alcohol (or LaMODA) plays acoustic bluegrass in the vein of Mumford & Sons or The Lumineers. "Quien Nos Va A Salvar?" ("Who's Gonna Save Us?") is the first full lenght effort of this combo emerging from the heart of Castilla y Leon province. On their bandcamp page (where you can buy the digital version of this album or download their previous releases for free) they describe themselves as 'drinking Nashville bourbon along with Russian vodka and Irish "Guinness" all at once'. But despite these characteristics their music doesn't really sound like the cocktail one could produce from these uneasy components. If "Quien Nos Va A Salvar?" would be a drink it could be definitely too fresh for the vodka-bourbon-Guinness mixture.
The songs on this album rarely exceed 3 minutes long with the only exception of the closing 'Nueva Orleans' over-4-minutes timing. The instruments used include banjo, saxo, accordion and violins in addition to acoustic guitars and drumkit. And it sounds like the band could manage all this wide range of tools with the greatest of ease playing full throttle and singing with all the passion the human beings could infuse in the music they make never showing the signs of losing control. And while not being the major step aside from [as trendy as] typical Mumford & Sons sound LaMODA can show you how the pack of fresh melodies and the lack of vanity-indulged hypergravity can bring a breath of life (or liveliness) into this deadborn idea of 'let's make this sort of Middle American roots music in England and Sweden and everywhere else'.
Let them be the followers of the trend, but they're not the copycats.

The best tracks: Los Hijos De Johnny Cash, Vasos Vacios, 1932

среда, 8 января 2014 г.

Los recuerdos de Sonorama 2013


Just spent some time editing the [mostly poor quality] photos I've made with my mobile phone till Sonorama fest in August.

Sin Rumbo:

Cyan:

Igloo:

Leon Benavente:

Pumuky:



Havalina:

Stay:

Xoel Lopez & his band:


The New Raemon & Maga:

Mi Pequena Radio:

Garamendi:

Dorian: