Homeless "Youthful Ashes"

Homeless "Youthful Ashes" (p)2020 self-released

The third longplay of the gaditanos Homeless is another chapter in the band's own story of the constant evolution. Stylistically "Youthful Ashes" differs from "Solidos Platonicos" as much as "Solidos Platonicos" differed from "La Ciencia Lo Sabe". There's a clue to this (not 100% correct, it's just what I can consider what it looks like from the distance). The band is a part of the southernmost Andalusian bands community closely associated with the Grabaciones Sumergidas - recording studio based in El Puerto de Santa Maria - and the personalities behind it: namely, Juan Antonio Mateos (plays guitar in Homeless, fronts The Magic Mor, produces dozens of local bands including my own favorites Detergente Liquido) and Ernie Rodriguez (plays drums for The Magic Mor and Detergente Liquido as well as for Homeless right now, along with assisting Juan Antonio in production duties). So it seems like Grabaciones Sumergidas sometimes acts like a think tank, a trading post, a pool of ideas from which the musicians could drink using the pieces of those collective ideas for their own purposes.

The first major change of the pattern is pictured right on the sleeve. As the title shows, after two LPs sung completely in castellano Diego Pozo - the frontman and primary songwriter of the band - started to sing in English. The more habitual situation in the Spanish indie scene is when a band starts its career from singing in English and then converts to Spanish. “Youthful Ashes” is the opposite case. It’s neither good nor bad – just a thing worth mentioning.

While the English language is the first thing you notice when putting the record on, the advanced role of synths is the second. There is a pair of songs in the middle of the album ("Breaking Up" and "The Trip") where the synths take leading role to make them sound so new wavey you could feel like going back to the 80's. However, for the most of the tracks Linda Guilala-esque synths, fragile-sounding (please don't confuse it with 'thin' – ‘fragile’ is good, ‘thin’ is mostly not) guitars and crispy clean sound of Slowdive's "Souvlaki" are the main sonic dominants. Despite the mention of both Linda Guilala and Slowdive in one phrase, only minor dreampop influence is detected. Melodically the album pays more debt to post-millennial 'non-aligned' British rock acts - for example, "Behind Us" sounds like amalgam of IAMX and The Cooper Temple Clause. It also reminds me of the last year's magnificent "In Search Of The Miraculous" by Desperate Journalist. It's not about any direct comparisons - it rather feels like when listetning to both records I get more or less the same emotions. And just like "In Search Of The Miraculous", "Youthful Ashes" is another strongest contender to compete for the year’s end pole position.

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Da Souza "Salsa Agredolça"

Da Souza "Salsa Agredolça" (p)2020 Bubota Discos

I'm unaware if there is a term considering the new generation of catalan/balearic indie scene. El Petit De Cal Eril, Ferran Palau, Ran Ran Ran, Da Souza, Roig!, Jorra I Gomorra, L'Espiadimonis, to name a few - they're all united by the specific feel their music creates. Call them 'slacker indie' because of their palpable lack of ambition that never prevents them from making the great song, or call them 'fluid pop' as those songs intentionally avoid the firm structures in such a way that any catchy tune contains an element of suspense: would it last for long until the end of the song (yeah, I'm gonna use that line in my own song) or would it break to pieces with some unexpected pipes entering the scene, or a dominant synth line reminiscent of Tubeway Army's "Replica". I guess this is exactly what is called 'artistic freedom'.

Regarding this particular example of 'fluid pop' [tm] I would like to say the following: Da Souza's "Futbol D'Avantguarda" appeared to be kind of an indie sensation a couple of years ago, and it was really great. "Salsa Agredolça" is even better.

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Lua Gramer "Destruir El Pop"

Lua Gramer "Destruir El Pop" (p)2020 Clifford Records

With the name that sounds like an intention (it can be translated as “To Destroy the Pop Music”) this album provides us with the sweet girl/boy vocals placed in front of post-punk/ indie-pop blend seasoned with the nugaze sound. The way the sweet melodies of the verses are scorched by the bursts of fuzzed-out guitar noise of the choruses is probably to display the announced destruction of pop. I’d single out "Desastre" as the track that showcases the band's modus operandi in the most illustrative way and "La Comunidad" as the best track of the album. Under the bottom line, it sounds like the ideal record for the fans of both The Field Mice and Amusement Parks On Fire.

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3spada "cuaderna d3 bitacora"

3spada "Cuaderna d3 Bitacora" (p)2020

It looks like Paco Espada has created this album without any navigation system. It's like, "What's your destination?" - "My destination is somewhere". He drifts freely through the genres as diverse as neo-prog ("Epitafio d3 Seikilos"), groove metal ("Grey Garden"), funk rock with scratches and ethnic motives ("Just Sound"), cabaret-stylized modal jazz ("Cefiro") or even crossover ("No Way") with his abilities to add some bass-driven component into any given genre clearly on display. With such the heterogenous environment it's obvious that some tracks may work perfectly for you, and some may not. For me, the aforementioned jazz theme doesn't seem like the real deal while the rest of the album with the bunch of tracks forged in the metal-related subgenres got me completely satisfied.

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Sauna Bytes "Sauna Bytes"

Sauna Bytes "Sauna Bytes" (p)2020

From the very first sounds this album welcomes a listener with the elevated vocals and jangling guitars reminiscent of either the pre-Britpop (or even pre-C86) Foggy Albion scene or some 80’s post-punk heroes from Down Under (The Church’s “Heyday” is arguably the most evident influence). Talking about more contemporary – as well as geographically closer – reference points I would like to mention the Madrid-based quartet Pasavento or Sauna Bytes’ Comunidad Valenciana compatriots Peepshow – both bands are visibly following the same path of pro-Britain pop/rock heavily infused with taste, elegance, tone-setting synths and tight ‘exactly as much as required’ drum section. As those bands remain relatively unnoticed by wider audience despite the undeniably high quality of their output I can’t escape the feeling that the lower profile bands (calling them ‘second tier of Spanish indie’ would be offensive, I guess) are now making way more interesting music than the most of their top tier (when you add ‘top’ to ‘tier’ it ceases to sound offensive, though) ‘always-in-the-public-eye’ peers do.

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b1n0 "b1n0"

b1n0 “b1n0” (p)2020 Foehn Records

Look, a lot of the critically acclaimed records of today sound like they were created the following way: all tracks were burned onto a CD, than CD was placed into a grinding machine, and finally the record was glued together from the billion silvery plastic pieces removed out of the grinding machine. If you look regularly into the Pitchfork Media’s ‘best new music’ section you know what I mean - Arca, FKA Twigs, Rosalia’s “El Mal Querer”, etc. While b1n0’s eponymous debut album apparently belongs to the same ‘cross-everything avant-pop’ subgenre of experimental music the aforementioned musicians belong to, it sounds more, dunno… human? Like, “Well, we would like the robots having got their tunes to make love to, but we still shouldn’t ignore eukaryotes”. Thus, on the Arcameter b1n0 are way closer to Moses Sumney than to Jlin.

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Gonzalo Fuster "Almacenero Marx"

Gonzalo Fuster "Almacenero Marx" (p)2020 Discos Belamarh

Have you ever noticed that the most simple sounding music is often the hardest to describe? This is the case of “Almacenero Marx”. It sounds like it’s 60% silence or indistinct homemade ambient noises but how would you describe the other 40%? Free-form minimal no-wave neo-classical musique concrete acid jazz with sporadic laughter, interfamilial dialogues or a toddler's mutter used as vocals? Ok, let's put it like that's the real thing. Do you get the idea? Chances are you don't. It needs to listen to the record to get the idea of it. One-take spontaneity mixed with bedroom pop techniques mixed with avant-garde mind of the former El Ser Humano mastermind.

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