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понедельник, 20 августа 2018 г.

Sonorama 2018. Day 4

Days 1-2
Day 3

Saturday, 11th
Our last Sonorama 2018 morning started at midday with the band Repion performing on Plaza la Sal. Repion were one of these bands we decided to look at only by chance as there was no appropriate alternative at the moment. Fortunately, it turned out to be one of the best decisions as this band impressed us much. They’ve got mood, they’ve got vibe. They’ve reminded me of The Breeders (though I never had a chance to see The Breeders live) – especially when the sisters Iñesta swapped their instruments with Teresa coming in to the mic and Marina taking on drumming duties. The discovery #1 for me.
The next band to appear on Heineken stage were Los Estanques. We missed most of their performance while drinking beer on Plaza Mayor but we managed to catch two last songs of their set. Thus we found them charming enough to dive deeper into their Paisley Underground-bred music upon returning home.
Then we headed to Castilla Y Leon stage for Burrito Panza. I personally had the strong desire to see them live as they’ve got that enormous new album “El Nuevo Frente Frio” and I was guessing how they would reconstruct the sound of the album onstage. Live the band sounded more in the vein of Mercromina (albeit excluding the latter’s signature wall of post-shoegaze guitar noise). For me as a longtime fan of Albacete’s finest it was all ok. 
At the moment we were teamed up with Rafa Tuñon (leader of Paciente Cero) and his company of friends so we won ourselves a couple of beers and the good place next to the entrance of Santa Catalina building to fully enjoy what was happening around. Also I was happy to see Rafa and Joan, the co-heads of Burrito Panza’s label El Genio Equivocado, amongst those before the sunlit stage. Up to the next gig (La Bien Querida) Gloria and her friends came to the place so our company grew bigger.
In the very beginning of La Bien Querida’s show we recognized Manuel Cabezali playing bass for Ana Fernandez-Villaverde. As far as I know this was his first appearance in Sonorama since the show of his primary vehicle Havalina was abruptly switched off the power (due to technical issues or schedule constrictions) back in 2013. 
Inside our circle of friends we talked alot but amidst the talks we paid attention to the show where Ana in her yellow dress did her tiny dancing to her own songs in slightly electronic wrap-up.
We stayed there for one more timeslot waiting for Nocturnos to come out. Frankly speaking, Nocturnos didn’t sound like the band for escenario principal. Rather they sounded like the great band for a club. Nevertheless, they’ve got plenty of catchy tunes and lots of energy so their performance was one of the best for us. Somewhere around that time Rafa Tuñon walked away searching for his friends, and Glo brought us some more beer...

***
Cosmen Adelaida have peeled off their dream pop influences almost completely for this gig presenting us their post punk side only. I don't know was it their usual modus operandi as it was the 1st time I saw them live. As for ‘Joana Serrat – Nat Simons’ case being compared to La Plata they sounded way more diverse while treading the same path.
Los Punsetes were our next POI. The only motions Ariadna, the female singer of the band, did during the performance were to come onstage and to come off. The entire concert she – dressed up in the Alice in the Wonderland costume (or it was the uniform of 18th century chambermaid) – stayed absolutely immobile. But the music was highly energetic, and this difference created pretty strange effect. We stayed there until the end of their set, and then accidentally run into Coque and Pablo from Los Vengadores. We talked in the interim, and these two folks were so nice that it felt such a pity to part ways with them.
For the second time in a row I was watching the performance of Izal through the leaves of an adornment plant standing in the corner of the VIP zone. For the last 5 years Izal grew on to enter the Pantheon of the best live bands of Spain, so they gathered the crowd easily comparable to one Liam Gallagher gathered the last night. They started their gig with “Pequeña Gran Revolucion”, my favourite song of theirs, so I screamed alot and then the rest of the concert I was just standing literally in the ficus elastica tub trying to figure out what’s going on onstage. They finalized the show with the fireworks. It looked so beautiful and, eh, monumental.
We didn't dare to move away from VIP zone cos there were too many people onsite, so little changed for me for Dorian's concert. The same corner, the same ficus elastica, the same emotions, the songs that great... Just some contagious sense of yearning started to crawl somewhere inside my spine as I knew well that this would be our last show of this Sonorama.

пятница, 25 августа 2017 г.

#Sonorama20. The Report. Part One

I’ve been writing it for a week, and what I wrote at the moment it covers only the first day of Sonorama 2017. It’s bad. It's inappropriate. I’m fucking up all the deadlines (though there’s no one to set the deadlines for me), and what I really need now is the correction of plans. However, here it goes.

Premise 
I was forced to go through a lot of problems with this Sonorama. First of all, at the end of June I was told that my chiefs’ vacations would coincide with mine in August, and they wouldn’t let me go. Previously I’ve discussed my Sonorama vacation with them many times, and everything was ok – so this situation has got me stunned in the bad way. I had no idea what to do, and was only waiting for some miracle to come. The miracle has come in the form of the unexpected pregnancy of my direct chief’s wife. Her first trimester started quite harsh what made her impossible to travel, so the chief postponed his vacation. That apparently opened the doors for me to come along the way out – but one week before Sonorama I fell ill with the tonsillitis that led me to stay in bed for 7 days – with body temp 39*C for 5 days in a row. These circumstances successfully made me coming to Aranda painfully worn-out and totally unprepared. I wanted to precede our visit with a couple of preliminary reviews (the most thought-about and even half-done was “20 bands for 20th anniversary” coverage of 20 most interesting ‘smaller font’ bands to see) – but all plans went crashed with my illness.
Despite my exhausted state of body and mind we did a lot in our 5th Sonorama. This time there were more stages inside the town of Aranda, some of them were located in remote places which made the daytime logistics quite complicated. But we exceeded our usual normative of 10-11 bands per day to observe, and approached the level of 13-15 bands seen in a day. The major difference of this Sonorama for us as compared to the 4 previous festivals is that we didn’t manage to reach the Plaza del Trigo performances. As I told you many times before, this square is the heart of the festival, but this time we found bands to perform on other stages more interesting than the ones of Plaza del Trigo. Thus we omitted the secret shows, because to see these undeclared concerts from the good viewpoint it needs to come to the square before the first band starts performing. If you come later – you’ll be forced to listen to the shows from afar due to the venue quickly getting overcrowded within the first minutes of the first concert. The only secret show we attended was one of Leon Benavente – the vast difference with the previous year when we observed all the secret shows from the very first line. Regarding the plan of the bands to see we made during Moscow Domodedovo – Madrid Barajas flight, we successfully met the most part of it, with some painful omissions:
  • We missed the show of Niños Mutantes almost completely because there were soooo many people when we came from Burgos stage after seeing Paranoid Android
  • We missed the performance of Echo because it coincided with Viva Suecia
  • We missed the show of Noise Box and Correos because their performances coincided with Nixon and Villanueva respectively, 
  • We had no chance to see Nocturnos because of our flight back home at Monday. 
Anyway, we saw a lot of bands and we didn’t die. We met a lot of people. These were the happiest days of our lives.

09/08/17. The night. Location: camping 
La Fiesta Bienvenida should start for us with the performances of Amaro Ferreiro and Rufus T. Firefly. Though Amaro Ferreiro is around here for so much time, his solo career could make James Iha seem prolific. This fact shouldn’t distract you cos he co-penned some of Ivan Ferreiro’s most memorable songs (“Turnedo” is, probably, the best evidence) – so his songwriting abilities are irrefutable. The second album that bears his name alone on the sleeve was put out the previous year. “Biologo” is very sympathetic record – just like its auteur is. Despite some apparent similarities with his brother’s art, Amaro makes something of his own. As a performer he seemed a bit shy (what is rather his personal feature than anything else), so all it was sweet and warm and intimate. We liked it a lot cos his songs and the manner of performing were pretty close to our inner selves.
Rufus T. Firefly is the band whose name first comes to mind when you talk about the bands in the blossom #rightnow. It’s a mistake to call them ‘young emerging band’ with their 10 years long career and the string of amazing albums in back catalogue but it’s obvious that within the last couple of years Rufus considerably increased their popularity. Now they are capable of gathering the crowd that is limited only by the size of the venue. Additionally, you hardly meet a person who doesn’t like them. Everybody likes Rufus T. Firefly, especially those amongst the musicians. The band rocked the Plaza del Trigo two years ago. Now they played not less than 4 times on festival: the first night, the Santa Catalina stage as a surprise band, a close-up acoustic show in Le Club, and as a part of Paranoid Android supergroup covering the tracks of Radiohead. We attended three of those four shows. The first one was the most impressive one. The distorted darkness that surrounded the camping stage in the General Gutierrez Park perfectly fitted the synth-soaked psychedelia the band created onstage. Even if the sound was not ideal it was absolutely clear why the band is so adored by their colleagues. Victor Cabezuelo and Julia Martin are one of the best musicians in their respective fields, and their music is a grandeur. A listener’s delight.

10/08/17. The morning. Main location: Plaza de Sal 
After seeing Vurro and Antes
Vurro: once viral one man band whose face and forehead is covered with the cow skull. He plays a drum kit and three keyboards. Additionally, he has two cymbals standing both sides of his head, and he is playing them with the horns of the skull; 
Antes: alternative rock trio with high quality ‘metallic’ sound and Biffy Clyro stage behavior, 
and the brief unexpected encounter with Sean Frutos (Second)
We had 15 minutes before Antes started playing so I rushed to the Plaza del Trigo to see what was going on in there but was not capable to get into due to the most streets around were banned for trespassing. I quickly returned to Plaza de Sal only to see Tanya making some strange gestures. From the distance I didn’t get what she meant, so when I got close she told me that I had just passed by Sean Frutos, the frontman of Second. In seconds we reached him, briefly talked to him and asked for a photo. He was so kind to let us do so!
we headed to Maria Pacheco stage to see Los Vengadores. We caught them two years ago on Burgos stage – and they were excellent with their over-the-top energy and memorable songs. Now they have slightly corrected their approach and presented more stripped-down sound and more mid-tempo set of songs. This didn’t change the fact that Los Vengadores is a band to follow, and their performance was the best for us in the midday section of events. When they covered up their actuation we approached them and expressed our feelings to Coque, the frontman of the band. He was nice and friendly talking to us and giving us the CD copy of their recent album “El Arte De Vivir” as a gift.
After we returned to the old town of Aranda we run into the guys of Igloo along with Rodrigo Valiente, the frontman of The Trunks. We were laughing together for 10 minutes and made a lot of photos.
Then our amigos gallegos walked away for lunch, while we headed along to Plaza Mayor intending to get ourselves a couple of white wines. Passing along the Plaza del Trigo we saw Arizona Baby playing their ‘concierto secreto’. In the back of the crowd we noticed Alejandro, the frontman of the band Kitai, who is of the Russian descent. He is famous for his furious stage appearance being ruthless as for spectators as for himself. So I was a bit scared touching his shoulder to attract his attention. But in real life he was so sweet and friendly that, after we did some photographs together with him we felt like if the sun poured its shine on us after the hours of heavy raining.

10/08/17. The night. Location: Recinto ferial
Right after we entered the festive zone we unintentionally stopped at Burgos stage where Molina Molina and his band performed at that time. I’ve read a review of his recent disc “Oz”, but for some reason never listened to the songs. Now this band is in my wish list, the hottest part of the wish list. Then we moved to the La Carpa Meetin Arts tent to see Destino 48 - the band that play melodic guitar-driven pop music with the 80’s touch in the melodies – to kill some time between Molina Molina and A Por Ella Ray. A Por Ella Ray were the first band marked ‘obligatory’ in our plan for this night. And they didn’t disappoint us with tight and catchy song-oriented rock rooted in earnestness and sincerity.
Anni B Sweet was the second one marked obligatory. Her dress was pink, her set of songs was concentrated around the album “Chasing Illusions” – one of my favorite albums of the last three years. This could not disappoint me, this could only make me happy.
20 Años de Sonorama was a “best of” show directed by Charlie Bautista, the rock espanol jack of all trades. He presented some of the most famous songs in the history of the Spanish indie scene. It started from "Rincon Exquisito" sung by our newfound acquaintance Sean Frutos. It was followed by Izal's "Mujer de Verde", Ivan Ferreiro's "Turnedo"... It was gorgeous but after 4 songs I run away to see Tuya. Passing by La Carpa Meetin Arts I was attracted by the sounds and stepped into. Previously I knew nothing about Yoyo Banana, but they became one of two greatest discoveries of this Sonorama for me. Their performance was unattended as it coincided with 20 años – and it was fucking injustice, because the band was as competent as original and they sounded really great.
Feeling guilty for missing Tuya I escaped La Carpa. Another great disappointment was to see the performance of Tuya was also unattended. Having barely 40 persons of audience the band fronted by David T. Ginzo arranged one of the best performances of the fest. Presenting their most recent release “A War Is ComingTuya appeared before our eyes as a duo. I’d describe the new sound of the band as quasi-psychedelic kraut-pop with lots of synths, occasional guitars and memorable hooks. The show was supported by the mysterious backstage video which added some majesty to the overall result. The older tracks were also reworked in “A War is Coming” stylistics. I think no one of those who came to see them left the venue unsatisfied.
Then I returned to the main stage to catch the final moments of 20 Años de Sonorama right when Maryan Frutos (Kuve) and Deu (WAS) were in the middle of their “Toro” cover (originally by El Columpio Asesino), and after we did a couple of wines and listened to Leon Benavente's "Ser Brigada" we moved our feet to see Siloe. Siloe has grown as a performer for this year between now and his Sonorama 2016’s Plaza del Trigo show. Back then he sounded lacking experience of the live concerts, but now he and his band re-appeared as a high class professionals ready to perform on larger stages. In the crowd we met Jose and Diego from Yo, Estratosferico and talked to them about tomorrow's plans. After that we had something like an hour of spare time so we decided to catch the place on the first line before Aranda stage to see Dorian from the better viewpoint. We successfully achieved the goal placing our bodies right before the Belly Hernandez’ working table. Anyway, our happiness was cut short by the unpredictable circumstances: the set of Dorian lasted only for 4 songs and then the equipment called it quits making the further performance impossible.
To diminish the disappointment we walked into VIP zone for drinks. After half an hour of waiting we returned to La Carpa to catch the beginning of our Barcelona friends Pin&Pon djs' set. We waved hello to them, and after the brief dancing to Ladilla Rusa' s "Macaulay Culkin" we sent them the goodbye kisses and left the venue thus ending our first full day of #Sonorama20.

четверг, 24 декабря 2015 г.

The Best Of 2015. Editor's Pick

See also:

Dorian "Diez Anos Y Un Dia" (p)I*M Records Buy Listen
Igloo "Igløø2" (p)Ernie Producciones Listen/Buy

Before the name of the one and only best album of the year 2015 is revealed I should declare two more albums that really made my year. In fact, for me and my small family these are the most played albums at home or in our car (or in a car rented while travelling by Spain). It is my decision to put them in the separate category as the songs they contain (mostly) aren't new. But these are not the compilations in the pure sense of the term because every old song is rethought, remade and refaced. In other words, both bands made some kind of the cover versions of their own songs in a way which was apparently different to these bands' modi operandi.  So I have no idea how to treat these albums in terms of categorization.
Anyway, this is not the most important thing about "Diez Anos Y Un Dia" and "Igløø2". The main thing is that Igloo and Dorian sound absolutely natural in the new found formats and it gives an additional dimension to their art. Which means that if they were already three-dimensional before this, then now they are the tesseracts.



среда, 26 августа 2015 г.

Sonorama Ribera 2015. The Report. #2 "Action!"

Date: August, Thursday 13th
Place: Spain, Burgos Province, Aranda de Duero, Plaza del Trigo & Recinto Ferial

Thursday, 13th at midday we came to the heart of Sonorama, the Plaza del Trigo, to start our normal festival life. We were a bit late to get there right at the start of the first performance - the one of Los Nastys. We saw this band live two years ago on Carson camping stage, and they were not so great, honestly speaking - especially being compared to the band that followed them (Sin Rumbo - and they were absolutely perfect). This time Los Nastys performed much better - and though the music was not of our kind, the band was funny and energetic and seemed capable to give the day the right start.
Los Nastys

When Los Nastys came offstage we ran to the Red Bull Tour Bus stage to see what's happening there. The guys from Supertennis were performing. This year Sonorama established close ties to another great summer festival, ContemPOPranea. To visualize these ties both festivals some kind of delegated one band from the roster to the partner. Sonorama delegated Correos, and ContemPOPranea delegated Supertennis. This band played melodic power pop and sounded quite interesting to dig them deeper.
Supertennis

By return to Plaza del Trigo we beheld the lovely show of Nunatak, one more cool band from Murcia. Nunatak became our first true discovery of this Sonorama. I knew nothing about the band, so for me and Tanya they were surprisingly good.
Nunatak

The band's sound was built around more or less traditional folk rock format and incorporated tubes and violin, and their performance was so sparkling that it was absolutely impossible not to fall for.
Right after the show of Nunatak we tried to get in touch with JuanMa Fernandez, el guitarrista de Igloo, who as we knew was somewhere around there. Thanks to the free wi-fi coverage of the most part of old town of Aranda we managed to find him in the crowd. The next band to come on the stage was Analogic - and I have little to tell about them because all through the show of Analogic we talked to JuanMa and rarely looked stageside.
Analogic

After we parted ways with JuanMa (previously making the agreement to meet at VIP zone at night) we went to Red Bull to look at the last band of the morning session - Bye Bye Lullaby, the winners of the DO Ribera del Duero "Talento Ribera" contest. They looked cool and sounded cool, and became one more band to monitor (and I monitor, no kidding - two minutes before I started to write this report I purchased their album on iTunes, and right now I type all these words and phrases listening to it).
Bye Bye Lullaby

The night session started for us from the stage Burgos Origen Y Destino (former Future Stars) and the band Bambikina on it. I found them on Facebook a couple of months before the Sonorama and wanted to see them live. It was folk-based kind of misic again, and Esther Mendez, the frontwoman of the band, was so funny and honest and devoted to what she was doing there. By the way, Burgos Origen Y Destino this year became the full-fledged stage instead of being just pretty small tent.
Bambikina

In the meantime we caught a couple of songs by Marlango on the main stage - it was pleasant enough to stay there for more but Tulsa were 'a must see' for me so we returned to Burgos stage to see Miren Iza and her pals. Tulsa is one of the definitive bands for me as they were the third Spanish band whose music I embraced some years ago, and their album "Solo Me Haz Rozado" I adore much since then. Earlier this year Tulsa released the new album named "La Chica Calma" that marked considerable stylistic change for the band. Now their music is more electronic, more introvert, more somber. Accompanied onstage by the persons of Charlie Bautista and Marti Perarnau caliber, Miren presented to us the set of new songs cross't with a couple of older tracks - and all this turned into definitely one of the best performances of the day. It was really impressive yet laconic.
Tulsa

Then there was another discovery. Naming 'discovery' the band with 20-something career is not so smart for me, but nevertheless I have never ever listened to Australian Blonde before this Thursday. This band really amazed me. Especially their guitarist who appear to be Paco Loco, one of the most renowned indie rock producers of Spain. Now we could see why they called him 'loco' (crazy). From afar he looks like J Mascis, but if J mixes his furious playing with anemic stage behaviour then Paco does everything full throttle. His guitar playing is full of energy, and his appearance is absolutely frenetic - he rarely stops moving more than for a second or two unlike his colleagues including Francisco Nixon, the man behind the mic.
Australian Blonde

Having stopped the headbanging on Australian Blonde we came to VIP zone to have ourselves some wine (this year there were 12 labels of DO Ribera del Duero wine, so one might taste them all and choose the best for his own taste) and to meet JuanMa. After both goals were successfully met we found out that one of the main 'points of interest' of this edition of Sonorama started to take place on the main stage.
The bright and colourful performance named Morente Live! was a homage to the late flamenco singer and composer Enrique Morente. In the 90's he was the first classic flamenco musician to make connections to indie rock world, and later Jota (Los Planetas) and Antonio Arias (Lagartija Nick) became his recurrent companions. After Enrique had passed away in 2010, his younger daughter Solea created a band with Jota and Antonio to pay homage to Enrique's large legacy. Initialy an one-off project, Los Evangelistas turned into something more releasing two albums, touring intensively and experiencing the mutual work with Youth, one of the most renowned British producers of all time. The show was semantically divided into several acts and started from the classic flamenco. We were not interested in classic flamenco and decided to walk around and just look what's happening here and there. The sounds from Burgos stage caught our attention so we came there again to look at Los Vengadores. Los Vengadores were loud, melodic and highly energetic. It was nice because I like loudness, melodicity and high levels of energy.
Los Vengadores

But as the show on the main stage developed, it came farther and farther away from the basic flamenco, gradually incorparting the elements rarely found in the classic genre. So when we returned to Ribera stage there were Estrella Morente - the eldest daughter of Enrique, Solea, Antonio Arias, Jota along with other Los Planetas members and a string of classic flamenco musicians. This last part of the show was absolutely spectacular and driving, full with pure emotions and beauty.
Morente Vive! troupe

When the final crescendo was over we stayed before Ribera stage to win ourselves the better places for Dorian. We met success moving our wine-fueled bodies right at the security bars by the very center of the stage. The waiting period faded fast and we quickly became surrounded by the screeching young females evoking Marc Gili before their eyes. Dorian launched the show with the biggest hit single from the "La Velocidad del Vacio" album - "Los Amigos Que Perdi". Celebrating the tenth anniversary of band's existence this year, now the band tours in support of the album "Diez Anos Y Un Dia". If the tracks on the album were arranged in intelligent acoustic key, then live they sounded much louder and considerably more powerful. The guitar sound was predominant throughout the show. As we knew most of the songs on "Diez Anos Y Un Dia" by heart, we sang them along being definitely not the worst singers in the forefront of the crowd (some chicks by our side were much worse than us). Closer to the end of the show the paper gun was triggered, and we found ourselves placed inside the papercuts blizzard. It looked - and felt - very beautiful and uplifting.
Dorian

It was great but what would come next should be even greater. Earlier this day it was declared that Dorian would set up the signing session in mercadillo right after the show. Accidentally, we took a couple of Dorian CDs from home to listen to in the car during our North Spain travel. So we got something to be signed by the band. The only thing that was not prepared for this was me.
I thought that the musicians would stand behind the counter and we would just give them our CDs to sign, and they would sign them in the free-flow mode. In the best case we could say them "Hi!", I supposed. But in fact it wasn't so. We were invited into the space where we could shake hands with them, embrace them, talk to them... It's so sad that I wasn't prepared for this. I was absolutely stunned by the mere possibility of staying behind them so I've almost lost my tongue and felt myself like a fool. All the guys were so welcoming to us, and Belly was so beautiful and nice... Poor dumbhead me, it could have been much better! Anyway, to meet and greet with one of our favourite high profile bands was the great experience.
After that we just listened to Dinero from afar, to Kuve (the band fronted by the younger sister of Second's Sean Frutos) from afar and to La Habitacion Roja also from afar. The night was done.

The only thing to apologize was the missed performance of Reina Republicana. I planned to see them but it was absolutely impossible due to Dorian show and signing session.


Text: Mikhail
Photo: Tatiana & Mikhail

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: