Presentando La Banda. Fifteen Years Old

Meet Solange Jacobs, the architect.
Under Fifteen Years Old alias this Lima, Peru native/Barcelona inhabitant creates the fragile soundscapes accompanied by the lyrics referring to controversy, self-sacrifice, sex, and politics.

Fifteen Years Old "The Image Lovers" (p)2011
Fifteen Years Old "Abecedario" (p)2015

I'm here to propose the following triangulation to understand what it's like: 1) thin as ice vocal vibrations of Julie Cruise 2) the quieter moments of the provocative tales of Jenny Hval  (or the most adventurous anti-pop excerpts in Bjork's career); 3) 'I-wear-my-heart-on-the-sleeve' artistic approach and short spoken-word excercises of Miranda July.

The first short album "The Image Lovers" is sung in English, and I'd call it more accessible for the 'untrained' ear. The tracks here really are the songs: though they are hardly about the classic 'verse-chorus-verse' template, they have the clear and distinct melodies you can easily be nodding to.

"Abecedario" is far more based on intuition, far more about impromptu feel, and far more minimalist and uncalculated. It feels like these crawling, nervous, fractured hymns of vulnerability, possession and sacrifice sung by Sol's childish vocals draw the pieces of transition from 'girl' to 'woman'. Sol here abandons the cyclic structure of composition completely, leaving the things flow freely from point 'A' to point 'Somewhere not here'. As a part of audiovisual performance act this album would work the best, but even being separated from the visual component it may give you the right impression. There's a certain complaint of the reviewer used when the album is way too long to feel comfortable with: "This could be the greater EP". For "Abecedario" I should declare the opposite: "This could be the greater full lenght" because the music of this kind needs time to embrace you, and now when you are just feeling embraced - all of a sudden, the music stops.

"Performance Poetry, Political Pop, Experimental Pop, Moon Music, and Autobiographical" - these tags Sol uses to describe her own path in music. I consider "moon music" the key one because her music is as trembling and dizzy as the moon shadows are.

Fifteen Years Old on Tumblr
Fifteen Years Old on BANDCAMP
Fifteen Years old on Facebook

Muchas gracias a Sol Jacobs por contactarme y invitarme al mundo de Fifteen Years Old

Presentando la Banda. Hacia las Rocas Imantadas

Hacia las Rocas Imantadas "Noray" EP (p)2013
Hacia las Rocas Imantadas "aNИa" EP (p)2014

This is not the easiest subject to review. Definitely this is not the music for everyone. Sometimes it's not even 'music' in the common sense of the word. Not a band in the common sense of the word, Hacia las Rocas Imantadas is an audiovisual collective where the music, the novel or the video cannot (or shouldn't) be considered apart from other creative sides of the bandmembers. Conducted by the 38 years old 'man of many talents' David Bailon (apart from his musical self within Hacia las Rocas Imantadas he's also a writer and a comic book author) together with his adherents Miguel Castro and Maria Muñoz, these sound collages are like the sketches from the extraterrestrial scrapbook where nothing is stable and nothing is habitual. You hardly can find the songs here (there are vocal parts but the vocals are mostly the narrations). What you'll get are the crawling, fragile and hypnotic free-form tracks that incorporate the diverse range of sub-styles and influences like lo-fi, ambient, space rock, Fennesz, Fushitsusha and the early Mercury Rev and mix them to the point where it does not make sense trying to categorize the final result.
It is definitely an adventurous listening but it's a good adventure to dive into.

Hacia las Rocas Imantadas' Bandcamp page
Hacia las Rocas Imantadas' Facebook page

Presentando la Banda. Clara Plath "Hi Lola !!" EP

Clara Plath "Hi Lola !!" (p)2014 Self-released

I am very pleased to present to you the young and restless quintet from Murcia: Clara Plath. Unfortunately, this short album has come to my hands too late to be included in the "best of" lists but it surely deserves it. First of all - Clara Plath, the namesake frontwoman of the band, has the beautiful sexy voice. The second - the music the band plays is good old school indie rock with the prevalence of guitars. I have a bent for this kind of music so two names have occurred to me right from the dark times of the 90's indie: The Geraldine Fibbers and Helium. Both bands were led by the girls with the deep voices (Carla Bozulich and Mary Timony respectively), and both bands were making music so loud that it was in controvercy to those girls' pretty appearances. Apparently, the Clara's songs are more conventional in terms of structure and dynamics but the 'loud clanging guitars and the rich voice of the female singer over them' template is present anyway.
The five-piece consists, apart from the girl at the mic, of Roberto Lopez (guitars and keyboards), Gabi Holden (guitars), Miguel Angel (bass) and Sergio Nicolei (drums). They are able to create the sound which is coherent and thick. The "Hi Lola !!" EP contains six songs plus one hidden track, and all the songs are memorable (with "A Whisper" as the most memorable amongst them) footstompers less or more rocking. Any of these songs might be a hit single, so this short album is very close to perfection within the chosen way/style/genre, I suppose.

You can easily get the full album HERE and/or like the Facebook page HERE.