A Quick Guide To... Jabalina Musica

Jabalina Musica is a cult indie label from Madrid. The label's roster mostly concentrates on the various sub-genres of indie pop. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Jabalina. The date was celebrated by the series of local concerts. For last five years Jabalina and its head Tanis Abellan has produced two absolutely astonishing singles collections: 'Jabalina Love Songs' and 'Dedicatessen'. These collections are published so deliciously that mere appearance of the discs could make your heart go wild. So let's start from the second one.

Graphics of 'Dedicatessen' are designed by Jesus Galvan who is the brother of Antonio Galvan, the man behind the Parade project. 

The series include the following items (in alphabetical order) all printed on colour vinyl:

1. ALDO LINARES y las mujeres
2. AMA ante el virus de la rabia
3. APENINO cerca de las estrellas
4. DOBLE PLETINA contra los amores perdidos
5. J'AIME en la noche eterna 
6. KLAUS&KINSKI a cuatro reinas moras
7. LLUM y la revuelta emocional 
8. PARADE en el estudio Ghibli
9. PUMUKY y el eterno femenino
10. SOLLETICO y el hombre de la casa
11. SOUVENIR y los finales sin fin
12. WILD HONEY Dear Cindy

Most of the bands - well-known (Klaus&Kinski, Parade, Doble Pletina) or not (Solletico, Ama) - deliver different kinds of lo-fi/synth-pop/folk pop/indie pop music with the fragile male/female vocals and general sense of the light melancholy. Even my all-time favorites Pumuky sound here like they do not want to tear the common canvas. I'm not gonna tell you that all these bands and musicians are the same or anything like that - no, absolutely. They are all different and all have their own features, but they have something in common here within this series - let it be baritone-voiced singer/songwriter Llum or quirky pop experimentators Doble Pletina, or Klaus&Kinsky who abandoned their twee in favor of loose acoustic piano-based songs.

For me, being familiar with the most of the presented musicians, nevertheless I've made one good discovery here - J'aime. His americana-tinged music is the perfect soundtrack for the rainy evenings spent home alone with a good bottle of wine.