DOM "Emergency"

DOM "Emergency" (p)2020 Discos Delejos

At the first sight "Emergency" is less consumable than last year's "2019" by another Domingo Aleman's avatar Sunday German Flowers. However, it is clear that it inherits as to "2019" as to the past works of now-defunct combo Ruin Man Band (also led by Domingo) "Beyond Panzaburro" and "Paraiso". It may lack Ruin Man Band's dance groove or "2019"'s cohesion but it's still got a lot to offer. Lyrically "Emergency" is dedicated to the contemporary world issues (environmental crisis, the conflict of new human-centered values and capitalistic system, etc). Partnered again with his long-time ally Manuel Estevez, this time Domingo invited his frequent collaborators: the local Canarian mainstays Fajardo and Diego Hdez - along with less frequent ones Arico and Acid Buda - to represent his world view the best way. As all of the mentioned persons are far from 'your usual songwriter' type, the album boundlessly mixes leftfield electronica with trip hop, dub, freak-folk and even abstract hip hop to produce strange music that may seem too complicated at the first listen but causes the effect of dependency with every subsequent time you push the play button.

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Conjunto Podenco, Lullavy "Garabato"

Conjunto Podenco, Lullavy "Garabato" (p)2020 Repetidor

This is not that sort of homogenous split album. United by the imprint (Repetidor) and the recording space (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria's La Caterva Grabaciones) sound-wise the bands - Catalan three-piece Lullavy and Gran Canaria-born combo Conjunto Podenco - differ a lot. 

While listening to Lullavy's lone LP "Ruina" (which is completely perfect for my taste) you might apply such tags as 'ethereal' or 'hypnotic' to their 2nd wave emo/post-hardcore odes, but this time the band took different approach to make the stripped-down 'flesh-and-bones' record like if it was produced by Steve Albini. So the result is considerably harsher than "Ruina". When Saul Ibañez sings here you can almost feel his vocal chords are bleeding. The songwriting is still great, "Si No Lo Piensas" is one of the best tracks that saw the light of day this year.

Conjunto Podenco is a tough subject to describe. The band consists of the persons more than well-known within Canarian music community: Fajardo (psych-folk singer-songwriter with successful solo career), Jose A. Lopez (owner of aforementioned La Caterva Grabaciones, recording engineer and producer of multiple local bands) and Angel Clavijo (head of local event agency Conexion Canarias). Based on this info it's hard to predict what their music would sound like before you start to listen to them, right? It's strange, but it doesn't get easier to debrief what you have just listened to afterwards. Like the most of the Canarian bands, Conjunto Podenco act beyond all possible limitations creating the music that seems completely uncategorizable. You may call them post-hardcore but please take in mind that they use post-hardcore angular rhythm base only as a thin layer below all and everything they place on top of it. You're hardly gonna define a cake by the glossy cardboard pad you put it on, ain't you?

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Diego Hdez "Paisajes Confinados"

 Diego Hdez "Paisajes Confinados" (p)2020 Discos Delejos/ Foehn Records

The prolific Canarian musician Diego Hernandez is not your average songwriter as he intentionally escapes any repetition, cyclic structures and linear melodies. His music is not 'songs' in the ordinary sense of the word. It's more like boat trip across the sea when at times it's calm and soothing and at times it's not. It may sound quite disturbing for an unprepared listener but it's not that kind of uncontrolled drift through the waves. It's just an expression of the non-linear mind of its auteur, and you can be sure that this expression is unique.

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Terry Vs. Tory "Heathers"

Terry Vs. Tori "Heathers" (p)2020 El Genio Equivocado

Jangle pop at its best with the references to everyone in wide array from Wedding Present to The Luxembourg Signal all the way through Trembling Blue Stars and earlier era Los Planetas along with touches of twee, C86 and dreampop. This genre experiences some kind of revival in recent years so the Sevilla-based quartet fits perfectly not only for the national music map #rightnow but also for the global trend confirmed by the critical acclaim of such releases as Desperate Journalist's "In Search Of The Miraculous" or Jetstream Pony's self-titled album.

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Pumuky "Castillo Interior" EP

Pumuky "Castillo Interior" (p)2020 Keroxen

It's never easy in the world of Pumuky. While having been stripped down to the core duo of brothers Jair and Noe Ramirez looked like streamlining of the internal communication, the creative process only got more complicated with both brothers having their own families now - in addition to them residing on the different islands. The necessity of finding the balance between making art and household duties significantly slowed the band's activities down. Now the new Pumuky releases are as frequent as your 29th of February birthday parties. 

Anyway, whatever they lose in output they compensate it in quality of songwriting. Recorded and mixed completely in Jair's own apartment the new EP still delivers every emotion Pumuky have always been honored for throughout their career. I still haven't listened to it via my home hi-fi system so as of now I can't check it out is there anything on the record that depicts 'bedroom origin' of it. But I don't feel like I have to. Everything I need to know about "Castillo Interior" has nothing to do with hi-end nuancing. So it might need a cheaper headset only to figure out what this record is. A piece of music as an antithesis to socializing. A soundrack of falling into the rabbit hole of your own mind. A sonic equivalent to hypnagogia. 

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BCore Disc 30

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the seminal Barcelona-based indie label BCore Disc. Upon learning of this fact I made a rush decision to make the ultimate list of the label's best releases as a means of celebrating. This intention was eating me for months. Initially I intended to use 'an album a year' approach. Then 'ten albums per decade'. Then I tried to make a selection of ideological milestones, as the label broadened the array of 'goods for sale' introducing step by step not only the genres previously missing in its DNA but also the people who would be widely associated with BCore in subsequent years. Then, in contrary, I tried to single out the albums that deviated the most from the label's course. And every time it turned out to be unbearable task cuz, man, we’re talking about 350+ releases! It’s quite significant quantity - even without speaking of the top notch quality of the majority of them. It took a little while for me to listen to the most part of the back catalogue to form the weighed opinion. Before I started this I had thought I was in good terms with the label's legacy. It turned out wrong so it appeared as a path of discoveries all the way through. The final list is the mix of all aforementioned approaches. Please take in mind that one can create a plenty of equally valid lists but whatever list you make it's absolutely impossible to cover the full spectre of BCore's vast cache of jewels.

The one last thing I'd like to say: the times are demanding to frame it into the Spotify playlist but I'm the old-fashioned 'album kind of guy' and I like it the old way because it needs some more than just one song per album to tell you the story. So, this is the list of 30 essential records in their fullness, in chronological order.

Trip Inside "Trip Inside" BC008 (p)1992 listen

Corn Flakes "Tracklist" BC017 (p)1993 listen

Passion Fish "Thank God It's Friday" BC023 (p)1995 listen

Swinepox "TV Shop EP" BC024 (p)1995 listen

Xmilk "Function" BC046 (p)1996 listen

No More Lies "Seeds Of Enthusiasm" BC055 (p)1998 listen

Slang "The Day The Sun Shone Cold EP" BC062 (p)1998 listen

Aina "Aina" BC064 (p)1998 listen

24 Ideas "Discografia Completa" BC075 (p)2000 listen

Zeidun "001" BC077 (p)2000 listen

The Unfinished Sympathy "The Unfinished Sympathy" BC080 (p)2001 listen

Les Philippes "Philharmonic Philanthropy" BC107 (p)2003 listen

Standstill "Standstill" BC113 (p)2004 listen

Delorean "Into The Plateau" BC139 (p)2006 listen

Sibyl Vane "Turismo De Interior" BC142 (p)2006 listen

Madee "L'Antarctica" BC150 (p)2007 listen

Charades "En Ningun Lugar" BC153 (p)2008 listen

The New Raemon "A Propósito De Garfunkel" BC159 (p)2008 listen

La Celula Durmiente "Miente!" BC163 (p)2008 listen

Persona "Dead Make-Up" BC168 (p)2008 listen

Jeremy Enigk "Vale Oso" BC170 (p)2009 listen

Nueva Vulcano "Los Peces De Colores" BC180 (p)2009 listen

Muy Fellini "Muy Fellini" BC182 (p)2009 listen

Vistalegre "Vistalegre" BC193 (p)2010 listen

Betunizer "Gran Veta" BC248 (p)2013 listen

Eric Fuentes "Barcelona" BC255 (p)2013 listen

Bullitt "Sparks" BC273 (p)2015 listen

Cala Vento "Cala Vento" BC285 (p)2016 listen

Power Burkas "Llarga Vida Al Tarannà" BC286 (p)2016 listen

Aldrin Y Collins "Odisea En El Espacio De Confort" BC334 (p)2018 listen

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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