Beach Beach - The Sea

The Sea, Beach Beach
La Castanya, Spain
Rating: 78
by Glòria Guso 

Balearic quartet Beach Beach are back after two years with an album that excels at extending the summer into the first warnings of the fall with songs made of jangle-y guitars and power pop riffs. This music may fool us and give us the illusion of prolonging the summer mood and softening the return to school and work, but the luminosity of the melodies is in fact masking the feeling of melancholy and gloom expressed in the lyrics. This is not the only contrast we can find in The Sea, an album inspired –so the band members say- by the namesake book of Blai Bonet, the Majorcan writer, where he says: “This is the war that comes after all peace, this war that penetrates the earth, creates dark caves and arouses lust. Like the sea does.”

Beach Beach’s debut album, Tasteless Peace (2012), was a poppy evolution of their previous works (the “Leeuwenhoek” group of songs, 2010), where the influence of American hardcore, math-rock and garage bands was pretty clear. Tasteless Peace was an excellent statement of what Beach Beach were and wanted to be: melomaniac musicians that could shake all their favorite music and squeeze something new from it. It is the kind of band that makes you think when listening to their records, to look for references and possible comparisons in your head, even if at the end it seems impossible to describe their music in only a few words. If that album recalled Teenage Fanclub, Teardrop Explodes and Dinosaur Jr among others, The Sea tosses in The Hit Parade, Josef K, the Beach Boys, Orange Juice and some kiwi pop references to lighten things up. For the recording of this album, Beach Beach relied on the stable live formation with drummer Àngel and guitar player Lluís, both members of the other Majorcan but based in Barcelona band Da Souza. This addition has surely given the songs some solidity and a different personality from previous compositions, so as does the fact that Tomeu and Pau also play in other bands (Kana Kapila, Extraperlo).

The Sea opens with a jingle, a possible opening song for a film about surfing that drives direct to the release single and one of the hits in this record. “Just Like Before” is the song that better embodies the underlying conflict present throughout the album, with its crystal clear guitars and its melodic filigrees somehow masking the gloomy lyrics that tell a story of love and disenchantment. This is what this album is about: growing up, not finding one’s place, not being able to process changes, feeling out of place. Is it nostalgia? We all grow old, but it is less painful if we can bounce our heads to songs like “A Weak Song,” with its powerful drum arrangements, “Fishbowl” with very colorful guitars and an intense resumption or “Narrow Fingers”, maybe the most C86-like song in “The Sea”. My personal favorite is “No Joy No Drama,”maybe because it gathers the sound of Tasteless Peace and its references from nineties rock in a more obvious way –doesn’t the uprising at the end remind you of “Plants”?- or maybe just because it is more epic than the rest. “Always Masking” has the most beautiful background vocals which, combined with the rocky guitars, make another hit.

Considering the evolution, it looks as if The Sea would mark a turning point in Beach Beach’s style. I hope it doesn’t, because I really like the blend of nineties rock clichés with kiwi pop details and the nice, well-sung, voice tracks that were already the trademark of their previous album. I do like their new poppier songs “White Clothes” (which they chose for their last videoclip) or “Busy Lips” (which makes me think about Madness, specially of the Absolutely album), but they have a more evident revival taste that doesn’t make this album as convincing as it could be. However, even if it is not a risky or radical change, the evolution towards a more mature sound is interesting and, above all, effective.

Primavera Sound 2014: Festival Report

Photo: Pierre Lestruhaut

It’s been a week since we got back from Primavera Sound and I must say that it takes quite a long time to recover from such a huge festival. We have seen lots of concerts, maybe not as many as we wanted but here you have Club Fonograma’s favorite acts from Barcelona’s biggest festival.

Wednesday May 28th, La [2] de Apolo: Aries, Beach Beach, Me & The Bees

Ex-Charades Isabel Fernandez’s new musical project Aries has attracted a lot of attention lately due to its second album Mermelada dorada, released by La Castanya last march. Opening the label’s showcase in the small room of the Apolo venue, Aries offered an audiovisual experience more than a concert. As dreamy as the songs are, relying just on voice, pre-recorded stuff and synths, live creations projected in the background wall illuminated the music and hypnotized everyone in the audience. Beach Beach started their show with its newest single, “Just like before,” from their forthcoming album and thus kept the lively ambiance in the room created by girl-duo Aries. They presented most of their forthcoming release The Sea (september 2014), which is going to be one of my favorite albums of the year (I already know it), but also played older hits from their previous album Tasteless Peace (2012). Beach Beach have become a poppier ensemble and it feels like a luxury to see them play in such a small venue, because it looks like they are going to be huge in the future. This showcase was also the occasion to present Mundo Fatal, Me & The Bees latest album, released just a day pior. Even if they could have preferred a setlist full of their old and well-known songs, Ester Junquera’s band played most of the new album and it was a very good surprise to see that everyone was pleased with it, the room at its full capacity. - Glòria Guirao-Soro



Thursday May 29th, Fòrum: Föllakzoid, Lasers

The ATP stage was the one hosting chilean psych-rock band Föllakzoid and, even if it was pretty early in the afternoon, there was a very big audience waiting for them just before the show -maybe because their latest shows in Barcelona were so well received. The desertic sounds of Föllakzoid’s album II invaded the surrounding space, fitting well in a place that looks like some post-apocalyptic site. Lasers closed the Vice stage at 3:00 in the morning with a mainly local audience but succeeded in throwing a Chicago look-alike party with their concert. The disposition of the trio on stage was peculiar, my impression of it was that the audience reacted to it as if it was just a DJ set, dancing to a setlist based on their disco tracks.  - Glòria Guirao-Soro

Photo: Felipe Mercado

Friday May 30th, Fòrum: The Saurs, Oso Leone

Apart from the big ones, there are also other smaller stages that showcase local bands or that are part of the Pro programme, where every year there’s an invited country or region (this year being Poland and Estonia). One of Barcelona’s youngest bands, The Saurs, played on friday at the Adidas Originals stage because they won the festival contest for local bands and it was one of the best shows that evening, very energetic and powerful. The garage-rock trio has just released their second EP, Dry Finger, and their shows are always a guarantee of fun. Friday was also the big event for young Mallorca band Oso Leone, playing and being filmed at the Pitchfork stage in prime time. With a setlist based mostly on the songs of Mokragora (Foehn Records, 2013), Oso Leone presented their very personal folk-rock based on noisy atmospheres and intense reverberations accompanying a voice that sometimes recalls Amen Dunes. It was an intense performance that started soft and quietly but unfolded a lot of energy all along.  - Glòria Guirao-Soro



Saturday May 31st, Fòrum: Univers, Juventud Juché

The last day at the Fòrum started with Pierre and I watching the last song of young nineties rockers Ohios, then going to the Pitchfork stage to see Univers defend their first LP L’Estat Natural. It was early and it was raining, but there were a lot of fans, friends, members of other local bands, but also curious international attendants. The latter only stared at the very beginning, but ended shaking their heads and moving along the noisy rock ambient Univers created with their setlist, based mainly on their last album but also featuring hits like "La pedregada" or "Cavall daurat" from previous releases. It was a pleasure to see that such a big stage wasn’t that intimidating for them, even if they look pretty nervous sometimes. Pierre had the chance to talk to them and we will soon publish an interview with two of the band members. Right on the other side of the festival site, playing at the same time Television was, we could see Madrid post-punk band Juventud Juché at the small Sony PS14 stage. It was a short but very intense show featuring songs from Quemadero (Sonido Muchacho, 2013) and from their self-titled EP, which already have a very powerful sound and gain intensity when played live. Juventud Juché is a well-greased trio whose member Javi (vocals, guitar), stands out as an extremely charismatic singer that can scream really loud.  - Glòria Guirao-Soro

Photo: Sony Club PS14

Sunday June 1st, BARTS: Juana Molina

I wasn’t supposed to write anything about Primavera Sound, since we were only given a single press pass that was used by Glòria, and I eventually found myself in more of a festive than journalistic mode. But in an unexpected turn of events, here I am, surrendering to my own devotion for music writing, in spite of the festival’s strange press pass policies regarding digital media. Two reasons made me sneak in this last paragraph in our Primavera report (pronounced pry-mah-vee-rah if you trust the singer of Chk Chk Chk). There’s the fact that I really wasn’t gonna miss the chance to join the very exclusive club of (pseudo) journalists that have covered festivals in three different countries. And of course there’s Juana Molina. I was glad she got to play an intimate show at a local club in downtown Barcelona because 1) if you’ve heard anything Juana Molina’s ever done then you just know this is music that needs to be experienced in an intimate setting and 2) there were no other bands she had to compete with for my presence at her show. I did experience the concert while sitting on the third floor balcony of BARTS, since my complete lack of knee strength after three days of “festivalling” forced me to find a place to sit down. But despite the relative distance and even though I’m not the biggest fan of Wed 21 around here, the mix of warmth, tension, charisma, and musicianship that emanated from Juana and her accompanying musicians, was the kind of perfect finale that the greatest music festival in the world needed. In a week that was full of self-conscious indie weirdos (from Stromae and St. Vincent's eccentric dance moves to Arcade Fire’s everything) Juana was the only one that just felt naturally quirky and effortlessly whimsical. Like Kendrick Lamar said at the end of his performance: I will be back! - Pierre Lestruhaut

Club Fonograma's Top 12 Must-See Acts at Primavera Sound 2014

Primavera Sound is the most important musical event of the year in Spain and maybe Europe. Held in Barcelona, it hosts more than 200 live acts in 4 days, but it also spreads along the city for more than a week with its programme of concerts in clubs, bars and public places such as parks. This years headliners include Pixies, Arcade Fire, The National and brazilian legend Caetano Veloso among others. As for the iberoamerican acts, which we will be covering, this is our Top 12 in no particular order. Glòria, will be live tweeting from @de_risio and Pierre Lestruhaut will also be there (@pedrito_les). You can also follow us on Instagram (@gloriaguso / @prrlesmac).

Univers
Pitchfork Stage, Saturday May 31 17:400

Only a year and a half after the release of their first EP, La Pedregada (Famèlic Records, 2012), Univers are one of the spanish bands with more international ressonance of the moment. Their first LP L’estat natural (2014) has been critically acclaimed, they have toured the country presenting it and now they play in the Pitchfork stage of Spain’s most important music festival. This show is the opportunity to see how Univers works in a big stage, but also to unveil Barcelona’s musical scene connections between bands, as I am sure a lot of those musicians will be in the audience. - Glòria Guirao-Soro

Lasers
Vice Stage, Thursday May 29 03:000

Barcelona based electro trio Lasers will close the Vice stage with their Chicago Sound inspired rhythms. They are well-known for their very danceable sets for fans of the more disco-like tracks of their last album Exchange Levels (2013) but also for the more poppy chill wave of Juno (2011). - Glòria Guirao-Soro

Astro
Vice Stage, Friday May 30 18:40 & Ray-Ban Unplugged, Friday May 30 23:30

At this point we’re wondering if there's actually any big festival Astro haven’t played yet. A sky-rocketed ascension, which started when they turned heads with their underground hit “Maestro Distorsión” and culminated in their almost universally beloved debut LP, has made the Chilean band a fixture in many summer festivals these last few years. If there’s any indication that their great eponymous album is still holding up more than two years after its release, the fact that they're playing Primavera Sound again after being there in 2012 should be enough. - Pierre Lestruhaut

Boogarins
Vice Stage, Saturday May 31 19:35 & Ciutadella, Sunday June 01 16:00

Heirs of the sound of bands such as Os Mutantes but with a psychedelic touch, Brazilian duo Boogarins visit Spain for the first time and will present there their own version of tropical fuzz-rock music. Friends since school times, they come from Goiânia, far from Brazil’s cultural centres, and have developed a very pecualiar mixture of influences that is not to be described as exotic nor as revivalist. Their debut LP, As Plantas Que Curan, is a journey to the sixties with a contemporary soundtrack based on fuzz and sound effects that makes it an atemporal ensemble. - Glòria Guirao-Soro















Juana Molina
BARTS, Sunday June 01 21:50

Duh. I mean, if there’s any Latin act (besides Cateano Veloso) that really needs no introduction, it’s Juana Molina. She could have retired after Un día, and still be one of the hottest acts in the festival, yet with the release of her excellent Wed 21, her output has been reinvigorated, and her live set will certainly be overflowing with crowd favorites and deep cuts. She’ll have the benefit of playing a more intimate show at a local club, for what is very likely to be a haunting performance from the master of horror. - Pierre Lestruhaut

Él Mató A Un Policía Motorizado 
ATP Stage, Wednesday May 28 17:55, La Seca - Espai Brossa, Thursday May 29 15:15 & La Botiga, Saturday May 31 12:30

If you’re looking for shout-along indie rock anthems to sing until your lungs are completely exhausted and your vocal chords are suppressed, Argentine indie darlings El Mató A Un Policía Motorizado are your ideal act for this edition. Granted, Primavera Sound is not devoid of indie rock grandeur, but El Mató has the advantage of 1) playing a free concert, and 2) singing indie rock en tu idioma. So there’s really no excuse to not go shout "Jenny, algún dia Jenny," "Nuevos discos, nuevas drogas" and "Más o menos bien" at any of the three fixtures the Argentines will be playing in this edition of Primavera Sound. - Pierre Lestruhaut

SVPER
Vice Stage, Thursday May 29 21:45

The band formerly known as Pegasvs have been blog favorites ever since their debut album cemented them as one of the most melodically accomplished acts in the brand of progressive pop music. They’ll have some heavyweights playing at the same time (Neutral Milk Hotel, St. Vincent, and Future Islands) but if you’re not a diehard fan of any of those anglo past or future legends, SVPER’s grandiose and forward-thinking pop is a must-see, even more so with the possibilities of them playing unreleased tracks. - Pierre Lestruhaut

El Último Vecino
Vice Stage, Thursday May 29 18:25 & Ray-Ban Unplugged, Thursday May 29 23:30

Cut Copy have serious competition for best synthpop revivalists playing at Primavera Sound this year. The band led by Gerard Alegre Doria made some serious noise last year in the Spaniard underground with their eponymous album (which we kinda slept on, to be honest). With a knack for instant 80s-reminiscent pop hits, this is the one local act we’re trusting will be inducing the biggest collective dancing among festival goers this year. - Pierre Lestruhaut

Beach Beach
La [2] de Apolo, Wednesday May 28 21:30

Having announced the release of their second LP in september, the Mallorca born, Barcelona based quartet just unveiled one of the tracks in The Sea (La Castanya, 2014). “Just like before” can only be described as an instant hit, it evocates the Sarah Records decade but does not forget the 90s influence of the bands last record (Tasteless Peace, 2012) and predicts a great new album. Beach Beach will be playing on wednesday in La [2] de Apolo as part of their label’s showcase, among Me & The Bees (presenting their newest album Mundo Fatal) and Aries, who released her second LP Mermelada Dorada earlier this year. - Glòria Guirao-Soro

Sangre
Sony Club PS14 Stage, Saturday May 31 18:300

There is more than one band called Sangre in Spain, but here we are talking about the girl band from Madrid that released their first EP, Sangre es Amor, in July 2013. Characteristic of Sangre are a low tone of voice and simpe melodies that recall garage pop bands from the 90s. They will be playing on saturday in the Sony Club PS14 stage, in the festival site, as part of the collaboration between Está Pasando blog and the brand, promoting young spanish bands such as Juventud Juché, Lost Fills, Ohios, Perro, Lost Fills or Los Ganglios. - Glòria Guirao-Soro

Oso Leone
Pitchfork Stage, Friday May 30 01:40

It’s not so obvious that folk and dub can be mixed, but that is exactly what Oso Leone have been doing in their last two records. Based in Barcelona, this group of artists and musicians is another of the Mallorca bands playing this year at Primavera Sound, along with Lost Fills and the already mentioned Beach Beach. The result of Oso Leone’s experimentations is a hazy ambient sound, we could say that it is even quite hipnotic, which seems clearer when they use visual effects in their live sets. - Glòria Guirao-Soro

Chicha Libre
Sala Apolo, Tuesday May 27 20:50

Who would have thought that the most Latin-folk inspired music in the festival would actually end up being played by a Brooklyn act? But you still gotta give it to the Primavera Sound curators for giving cumbia a slot in this year’s festival. Brooklyn-based group Chicha Libre have been doing a fine work in revitalizing chicha, the brand of Peruvian cumbia that brought together Latin folk rhythms with psychedelic and surf rock, and their 2012 release Canibalismo was the kind of non-stop dancing party that’s likely to translate seamlessly into a riveting live set. - Pierre Lestruhaut