The Best Of 2014. Albums 11 - 20

20. Yani Como "Tu Ninca Te Aburres"
(p)Art Of Troya

With every next album (this one is sixth) my Persons Of The Year (I suppose they know why I call them so) become better and better - just like good DO Ribera del Duero wine.

19. Tania De Sousa "Tania Tank"
(p)Talka Records

With the ideological help of Fermin Muguruza and the full throttle guitar support of Correos' frontman Fermin Bouza this Pais Vasco native punk girl creates the melodic monument to the feminine power.

P.S. "She's the model and she's looking good..."

18. Proyecto Solaz "Homeoextasis"
(p)Digimusic

Named after the Lagartija Nick song "Solaz", the six-piece from Almeria released their first album in the very end of 2013. 9 noisy nervous restless tracks of experimental alternative rock with the perfect 'from intimate to earcrushing' vocals of Maria Martinez and Standstill-like rhythmical structures.

17. El Columpio Asesino "Ballenas Muertas En San Sebastian"
(p)Mushroom Pillow

Misanthropic electro-punk from the Pamplona-born post punk quintet - as cold and icy as Baffin's Island and as friendly and cheerful as an iceberg that crashed Titanic. 

You have longed for the next "Toro"? - Haha.

16. Puma Pumku "Is It In You?"
(p)Matapadre

The impressive first long play (produced by the members of Triangulo de Amor Bizarro) from the Galician psychedelic quintet is the reign of echoes, reverb, detached vocals and old-school dreampop-drenched instrumentation.

15. Sin Rumbo "LUZ"
(p)self-released

The band on the verge of 'making it', Madrid-based Sin Rumbo have changed the direction before releasing their most ambitious project yet. But despite the genre-bending metamorphoses "LUZ" could star as a perfect example of how to change the ways and methods without losing your face.

14. Carmen Boza "La Mansion De Los Espejos"
(p)self-released

"Gran artista y mejor persona. No, en serio; hago canciones" says the bandcamp page of Carmen Boza. Her album is a true gem of the semi-acoustic folk songs and 'a girl and a guitar and a tiny backing band' template. All the 11 songs here are absolutely fantastic.

13. Velcro "Hojalata"
(p)El Hombre Bala

The great collection of re-recorded and re-produced early tracks of the Canarian leftfield electrorock outfit. As I said earlier in the beginning of this year, "Hojalata" is full of great tunes and catchy choruses and happiness for everyone who's into the post-shoegaze alternative dance rock. Since then my opinion has not changed.

12. Blusa "¡Toca Breakbeat, Perro!"
(p)Sello Salvaje

The best feature that "Toca Breakbeat, Perro!" wears on its sleeves - and that makes this wordless album so exciting - is the four musicians' outstanding three-dimensional thinking and the ability to construct the compositions with almost architecturally detailed use of the sound space.

11. Las Ruinas "Toni Bravo"
(p)El Genio Equivocado

These tracks may seem simple enough but the truth is they are so perfectly constructed that could work even without vocals ("Ultimo Tren" as a proof) said I a month ago. Like Blusa, this post punk trio also has an exceptional three-dimensional creative vision - but they use it in another way: instead of creating the slowly evolving soundscapes they make 2 minutes long songs with equally fine results.

#CaminoAlSonorama. Sonorama Ribera 2014

It's only 3 weeks remaining before the next edition of Sonorama Ribera fest in Aranda de Duero, province of Burgos. 10 months ago I started this blog with the report on Sonorama 2013. The previous edition was my first experience of travelling to a foreign music festival, and it was so nice one! This year we're gonna return to Aranda (in fact, we are already in the 'ready/steady/go' position) and our expectations are to achieve even higher level of pleasure there - especially if taking into account that last week we were granted two VIP tickets to the fest. 

Yani Como (#25 in my 'Los Treinta Principales' thread) is probably the best and most well-known rock band of Aranda origin. The band's leader Javier Ajenjo is the 'showrunner' of Sonorama as well. A couple of weeks ago Yani Como started a crowdfunding campaign to produce and issue their next album "Tu Nunca Te Aburres". I've contacted them on certain details of the campaign, and than received the message from Cesar Quero Garcia, band's guitar player who was really surprised of how far their music might go. Cesar was so kind offering me to upgrade my tickets to VIP - that proposal I accepted sin duda.

Yani Como crowdfunding project

This year Sonorama would be much larger venue than the previous years, with over 80 participants and the lifecycle of 4 days. The main point of attention would be, arguably, Los Planetas - the definitive Spanish indie rock band recently has returned to concert activity after almost 3 years hiatus. Also, there would be the huge number of other great bands and musicians. I'm looking forward to it!

Los Treinta Principales. #25. Yani Como "Nada Es Lo Que Parece"

#25. Yani Como "Nada Es Lo Que Parece" (p)2011 Art Of Troya

Yani Como are from Aranda de Duero, so it's no surprise that Javier Ajenjo, the leader of the band, is also the director of Sonorama music festival - the annual event which was described on the pages of this blog earlier. Despite the popularity of the senor Ajenjo's favourite brainchild (arguably, Sonorama is the largest indie event of the state - if counting the events focused on the domestic musicians), his second favourite brainchild is not so popular amongst people. Yani Como has neither wikipedia page nor the personal page on the lafonoteca.net, one of the largest resourses dedicated to Spanish rock music. This fact makes the digging in the band's discography a bit complicated task.
So, "Nothing Is What It Seems" is, approximately, the 3rd longplay of Yani Como and, definitely, the most perfected one.
And while the initial works of the band were inclined to a casual powerpop sound, this album is more about 90's Britrock tradition in the vein of Teenage Fanclub or The Boo Radleys. The sound of the band is enriched not only by the unexpected rhythm shifts ("Aqui Estoy") or translucent psychedelic touches (almost every song on the album) but also by heavy use of the violin - not the most obvious music instrument for the rocking indie band. To be fair, the violin is present on the previous albums of Yani but only here it is not only the important component of the band's sound but the instrument that upgrades it to the higher level of coherence and to the absolutely ethereal effects in such songs like "Buenos Aires" or "50E".
And the voice of Javier Ajenjo has the natural reverb effect in it, so once you've heard it you'd never confuse it with someone else's.

In the end of 2011 I voted for this album as the 2nd best album of the year (http://i-am-sposob.livejournal.com/121826.html), and after two years passed, I can confirm that it didn't become worse.

Physically the album was distributed through the tiny wine shops network (even the special wine bottles were created with the cover of the album as the wine label). So this is the only album from the TOP30 list that I have no hope to obtain on CD.

The best tracks: "Buenos Aires", "50E", "Aqui Estoy", "Magia"

No videos were made for this album, though.