Video: El Guincho (feat. La Mala Rodríguez) - "Cómix"

El Guincho's comeback has proved just as confounding as early singles "Mis Hits" and "Roto Socu" hinted it would be. Early listens of Hiperasia reveal a kinetic, tantalizing and, indeed, hyper album that rejects the notion of a finished pop product. A move one could appropriately link with Pablo Diaz-Reixa’s intentions to capture the energy of Chinese bazaars in Madrid. But Hiperasia isn’t merely an attempt at culture shock. El Guincho actually sounds like he’s having fun with it.

In “Cómix,” the Spanish producer introduces his “Chef P” moniker and struts along to bars more Shibuya-kei than Straight Outta anywhere. Is this confidence earned? Maybe not at first. The fast food beats need a minute to dig up some substance, which unveils itself through hypnotic bursts. By the third or fourth “BUENA,” we really can’t help falling for it. Elsewhere a revitalized Mala Rodríguez pops up and barely flinches, securing the tone needed for Chef P’s closing lines: “Sé que te molesta ver / como no me cuesta / Chef P / Ch Ch Chef P / solo come Cómix.” Translation: stay mad.

Watch the CANADA-directed video above. Hiperasia arrives digitally February 12 followed by a March 11 physical release.

Video: El Último Vecino – "Tu Casa Nueva"

“Tu Casa Nueva” was released last December as a Maxi-Single CANADA Editorial and rose at once to the top 25 of our Best songs of the year 2014. So it was about time for this stellar synthpop track to be given the video treatment, and for El Último Vecino’s hard-hitting irresistible melodies to resurface. Gerard Alegre Dòria’s decadent, symbolist lyrics (“Todas las espinas que yo tenía en la cabeza / me han sesgado.”), deep and sorrowful tone and pure and immediate rhythms carry a melancholic urgency that sets him apart from other revivalists acts of the moment. Three decades interact here: the coldness of the new wave-esque synths, some rock impulses and an ever oozing dance side. Directed by Gerson Aguerri (who has also worked with El Guincho and Los Massieras), the video merges scattered elements (a rising sun, what could be doric columns, occultism and plant close-ups) reflecting the dizzying eclecticism of EÚV and wittily grasping the links between subject and space, a theme that seems central to Dòria’s work.

CLUBZ – Épocas EP

There are moments in life where denying ourselves a good thing would only be foolish. Like when a collection of some the most exciting iberoamerican synthpop, electro and indie rock acts reinterpret one of our favorite singles of last year and its B-side, “Épocas” and “Ciclos” from the regiomontano pair, CLUBZ. Yes, the multiplication of remixes of one (or two) songs can dilute its potential. It can also blow up the possibilities, which is the case here.

Initially released in June of this year via the Barcelona based label Canadá Editorial, the maxi single included a remix of the two tracks by labelmates Extraperlo and El Último Vecino. Épocas EP re-released on Monday, is an extended version, which introduces renditions by producers Teen Flirt, Wet Baes and Raido and art-rock band Porter. Pulling in many directions, the EP could have easily been inconsistent, yet it remains a surprisingly effective creation. In fact, all remixes eventually merge through an atmosphere where the wistfulness of the sounds and the warmth of the rhythmic occurrences meet.

Épocas EP stands between two states, just like dawn or dusk, sweeping over melancholy and voluptuousness with velvety and hypnotic textures. The bold reincarnation of “Ciclos” by Porter, with its low-toned rhythmic melody and earthly flute arrangements, is an immediate highlight, yet upon repeated plays, Wet Baes’ hazy vaporwave re-score of “Épocas” also deserves a special mention.

Video: Los Punsetes - Me gusta que me pegues

While CANADA's style has remained a popular reference point for countless indie videos (and indie video dissections), their latest work for Los Punsetes combines a familiar aesthetic with an even more exaggerated commercial and pop motif. What I'm getting at is that this is kind of Kyary-esque. Anyone who has followed Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's videography over the years should instantly recognize certain visual elements of marrying cute with creepy. “Me gusta que me pegues” might not strictly adhere to Kyary's dogma (what does?), but it still gets there. Consider the scene in which singer Ariadna, dressed in a gold lamé sweater, delivers a knockout roundhouse kick, or how her victim (a pretty freaking creepy piñata man) tumbles down as gracefully as it occurs only in anime. Don't even get me started on the performance shots with candy graphics swirling inside the band. This kawaii masochism is soundtracked by a brazen and addicting single that charges through like a fuse, you can't blink because it goes out that quickly. It's the first taste of LPIV (out November 4th on CANADA Editorial), which also reunites Los Punsetes with Pablo Díaz-Reixa (El Guincho) as producer.

Extraperlo - Delirio Específico

Delirio Específico, Extraperlo
Canada, Spain
Rating: 84
by Pierre Lestruhaut

The main story arc surrounding Extraperlo’s new record is that after breakthrough album Desayuno Continental, as the band was put on halt while each member went its own separate way to work on different projects (Borja Rosal as guitar player for El Guincho, and Alba Blasi as half of Granit were quick to spring), it also gave them the opportunity to mature and evolve as musicians individually. Added to the fact they’ve now teamed up with Pablo Díaz-Reixa as producer for their latest record Delirio Específico, it seems to explain why the most ear-catching divergence from their previous release is just how much cleaner the whole thing sounds. By association, words like accessibility and polishedness start to pop out, meaning that the framework for Deliro Específico is inherently poppier, relatable, and communal. The equivalent of evolving from warm art house films into lush technicolor sagas.

Working with highly influential musician-turned-producer-du-jour El Guincho, and releasing the record through new home of the cool label Canada after abandoning previous home of the cool Mushroom Pillow, the changes in entourage feel as though they’re simultaneously trying to safely ride the trendiness train, while also aligning themselves with a certain scene and aesthetic that carries a whole ethos of its own. First single “Ardiente Figura” shines not only as one of the best pop songs to come out of Spain this year, but as a relentless fluttering of post-punk, tropicalia, dub, and afrobeat influences consolidated into a riff that shudders your every bone, a hook that pervades your brain, and a bridge that melts your heart. All of this done with admirable restraint, and an impressive congealing of their influences into convincingly original melodies and arrangements.

But for a band that shows such restraint in their performance, the themes throughout the album appear to be rampant with luxuriousness. One could quickly shelve their lyrics as straight-out pop idioms, yet with repeated listens they seem to offer some vivid imagery that’s possibly related to fiery sexuality (“Ardiente Figura” and “A Nivel Carnal”), and seaside rapture (“Las Corrientes del Golfo” and “Viaje a Brasil”). Borja Rosal has allegedly succeeded at his conscious attempt to sound a lot less like Orange Juice frontman Edwyn Collins, though when his roaring voice gets paired with new-wavey staccato riffage (such as in “Las Corrientes de Golfo”) the Soda Stereo extrapolation CF’s own Gio Guillén mentioned does start to feel a bit inevitable to point at. Alba Blasi’s occasional appearances though, show off a tonal counterpoint that adds considerable breadth to Extraperlo’s palette, a band that here pulls together such elegance and energy from the most disparate of sounds.

Leaving barely any silences between tracks does nothing but reinforce the contrast in cohesiveness between their debut and sophomore records, which points out to the fact that Delirio Específico can be misinterpreted as the effort of a band still working to find their ground and tailoring what’s coming closer to be their dreamed-about sound. But perhaps that’s the whole point of Extraperlo. In an interview for PlayGround, when asked about the possibility of dropping an eventual third record, Borja Rosal stated they would need to find ways to do things differently, in order to keep the creative spirit alive. It’s their own nonconformity that truly defines Extraperlo. And in Delirio Específico, as a band that’s still experimenting with expanding their own palette, they’ve succeeded at admirably looking for new ways to conjure leisure-evoking melodical opulence, afrobeat-inspired guitar licks, and 80’s pad beats into truly stuttering internet-era pop songs.

Pegasvs - Pegasvs

Pegasvs, Pegasvs
CANADA Editorial, Spain
Rating: 92
by Carlos Reyes

Progressive rock lost its sanity during the aughts. After thirty years of the prog rock theorem, song structures devalued artistic credibility and intricate compositions exceeded shock value. Like many other shifts in culture, the genre is moving into a more subtle golden wave of progressive pop, one that doesn’t need to push the boundaries of the genre to achieve artistic integrity (the grace of pop music). So much of this swing translates as glory in the Olympian debut album of Luciana and Sergio, two synth junkies that cultivate melodic splendor as the esoteric constellation, Pegasvs.

In their provision of debutants, and after many months of well-credited buzz, on their self-titled debut Pegasvs envelops the prophecy of a synthesized riff. Pegasvs harmonizes analog measure with the rumination of moving forward. Although hardly conceptualized in its themes, the nine tracks that comprise the album circulate on a beautiful (yet heretical) landscape of shoegaze orchestration. The album’s entrance (“Brillar”) sighs about an everlasting splendorous shine and, as fantastical as that may sound, these guys aren’t kidding around. The songs are rapturous and digressive to the zeitgest. Pegasvs keeps a minimalistic aesthetic to rather point its exponential eye to a perpetual extent, and they’ve succeeded. For referential purposes, it wouldn’t be a surprise (or a blasphemy) to remember this album as a shrewdly mythological box of synth crescendos. But these crescendos are more than tools for melodic ascendance, they carry the emotional force needed for an album that travels on its own atmospheric drift.

All nine tracks of the album share similar compositions, but the journeys themselves seem to have experienced variation in gravitational force. Pegasvs’ search for rhythm patterns unfolds beautifully in an album that feels cohesive but reveals its dimensions through a level of disparity. The finished edits of the songs we’ve come to be deeply attached to sound spectacular by themselves, but even more significant on the broader canvas. “Atlántico” feels like it was treated as a navigable whirlpool, where engaging hooks and elementary geography dissolve at the grandiose scale of a love tale. The band’s hits “El Final de la Noche” and “La Melodía del Afilador” sound sharper and more delirious than ever before; both tracks traveled from optimist basement numbers to serious anthemic moments. This is not a pair of revisionists; they are renaissance people at heart.

And then there are the virgin-to-the-ear tracks that are as equally impressive. “No Volverá” stands out as the most out front and vocally naked number. This track unveils a potency in Pegasvs to detach from frenetic tempo and explore subsonic speeds. Luciana and Sergio share a bohemian wilderness that they’ve come to confront in the album’s most dualistic piece, “Inmortal.” This is our entrance to an operatic netherworld that punches you from the moment you knock on the door and doesn’t stop the bruising until it gives you a seizure (one that comes with frightening cathedral screams). This is Pegasvs at their best, using adept spacing for narrative and topic transgression. In a way, what the duo has done throughout the album is to provide the folk remedies for a synthetic alternative. Because even if the opening sequence of “Sol de Medianoche” smells like Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” Pegasvs makes sure to provide the negative space, balladic tone, and symphonic blow-out for the conception and distillation of their own trail. Pegasvs is bleak, assaulting to the senses, and flawless in its premise of a synthesized dialect–a supreme opera prima that is already moving forward.

La Estrella de David - Maracaibo

Maracaibo, La Estrella de David

Canadá, Spain

Rating: 67

by Pierre Lestruhaut



Let’s just get the obvious stuff out first. Like most people writing about La Estrella de David’s Maracaibo have been pointing out, David Rodríguez is indeed that sort of discreet figure that’s silently but importantly contributing to shaping the sound of a particular scene, in this case, one that features some of our more beloved Spanish indie acts. Because whether it’s through the delayed influence of his band Beef or his production work in Romancero and LP2, he’s constantly being referred to as an influence for many indie bands from that side of the Atlantic. Added to that is the fact that this latest release features collaborations from musicians of that scene (La Bien Querida, Joe Crepúsculo, Za!, Thelemáticos), all of this to say this was a well-anticipated album, not only for us, but especially for every Spanish publication out there with a weakness for indie bands.



Initial tracks in Maracaibo show Rodríguez’s intentions to continue in his rediscovery of Spanish pop songwriting, yet it’s halfway through the album that he starts walking a more interesting territory. After his Cluster-inspired ambient piece, “La Gran Fiesta de la Democracia Parte 1,” follows the slightly dissonant yet simple “Parte 2,” which is filled with a Spacemen 3-like atmosphere and the experimentalism of his Beef era. Yet the standout tracks in Maracaibo are probably his blues rock number, “El Más Romano del Mundo,” and his heavily romantic and simple “Un Último Esfuerzo,” where Rodríguez exercises himself in building yet another nicely crafted romantic song around a simple two chord pattern and its occasionally encompassing keyboards. And, as has always been common with most Spanish pop (indie or not), the record finds its best lines precisely in this romantic backdrop (“ella me da la certeza, subiendo las escaleras”), which our own Enrique Coyotzi described as “deeply moving manifestations” in his review of the track.



Eventually, a lot of the songs on this album feel either like inconsequential eclecticism, like “Decathlon” and its gypsy rhythm explorations, or weary revisions of Spanish traditional songwriting, like the cover version of Julio Iglesias’ “La Carretera.” While his more politically suggestive lyrics and one liners, like “se tiró el último pedo” or “nunca ganaremos Eurovisión,” fall terribly short of those in Los Punsetes’ LP2. Overall, it’s not like Rodríguez has done much to change his band’s sound, since most of its conspicuous elements (careless interpretation and unpolished-yet-sometimes-charming production) remain throughout the record. But what’s a little unsettling about it is how most of it just doesn’t quite reach the bar that was set by (and yes, I’m returning to those two records in particular) Romancero and LP2, with all of their inventive instrumentation and lyrical force, which was perhaps what we were hoping to see a little more of in Maracaibo.

Video: Pegasvs - "El Final de la Noche"

Spain’s breakthrough progressive pop band Pegasvs has earned every ounce of their hype delivering one amazing track after another. Considering “La Melodia del Afilador” and “Atlantico” are two of our favorite rock songs of the year already, Pegasvs debut album is starting to take the form of an essential. Band members Luciana and Sergio have made a smart move releasing yet another stunning new song. “El Final de la Noche” brings synth power into Pegasvs sharp sonic edges, and it doesn’t hurt to unveil it alongside a video produced by the always reliable CANADA. “El Final de la Noche” is dark and wonderfully submissive, an acknowledgement of the night as a provisional rapture. I love the secrecy of this band, there’s something very romantic about them. I can’t quite put it into words, but I imagine this is how it used to feel decades ago when people would count the days for record releases in order to presume an artist’s image. Word on the street says Pegasvs will be releasing their debut in a couple of months. We’re drooling for it.

Joe Crepúsculo - Nuevo Ritmo

Nuevo Ritmo, Joe Crepúsculo
Canada (Records), Spain
Rating: 69
by Jean-Stephane Beriot

Joe Crepúsculo is not a perfectionist, or as obsessive as Brian Wilson. This was my immediate thought when I learned Joël Iriarte’s fourth album was actually a reconstruction of the many hits accomplished on his previous 2008-released albums Escuela de Zebras & Supercrepus, his last album Chill Out (2009) was apparently omitted. The album's title Nuevo Ritmo gave us a hint of Crepúsculo artistic continuum, but the reformation, enhancement, and re-enactment of his past songs make up for a complicated surprise.

For the last three years, Joe’s pop-avant premise has been unmatched by anyone else on his field; there are plenty of bright individuals on the techno department, but very few of them to rely on when it came to finding an escape from the ordinary. For the first time in his career, he is taking us to common places, and that’s one of the last attributes we would expect to find in his persona. Nuevo Ritmo isn’t a betrayal on the fans or the artist's vision; it’s actually a brave and romantic proposal. Crepúsculo, a pop adventurer, explores the sounds of the West on this –relatively new- record. The result is a hit-or-miss album of Americanized conjuncture and romanticized Latinism.

The best pieces in Nuevo Ritmo resolve around South-American rhythms, which Iriarte seems to be genuinely attached to. When listening to “Escuela de Zebras” one can’t help but think he’s been listening to Pibe Chorros a bit too much. First single “Tus Cosas Buenas” is spectacular; the corner where disco strings and reggaeton meet Wendy Sulca. Spectacular, but also misleading as most of the new versions are diminished to softer (and less-uncouth) structures. Other tracks that get optimized with new clothes include “Baraja de Cuchillos” and “Amor Congelado.” If we were to extract the country-inclined and North-American pieces, we would be left with a much more pleasing set (including the four new impressive tunes).

The critical reception of the album has been lukewarm among Spain’s most critical sources; perhaps a viewpoint from this side of the world can put things in perspective. And here it is: no matter where you’re from, or how physically-distant you might be from a particular subject, we simply don’t get very aroused by art assembled in new packaging. But don’t get it wrong, Nuevo Ritmo isn’t an opportunistic record by any means; it’s a conceptual album that reaffirms Iriarte’s status as an uncompromised author. If this review seems like a total-panned text, it’s only because we truly feel we’re in front of one of the most unique artists of our generation. Nuevo Ritmo is not a bad album by any means; it’s just a difficult experience for those of us outside the ‘crepus’ orbital.

Video: Joe Crepúsculo - "Tus Cosas Buenas"

Considering CANADA (Spain’s great music video inc) went outside its medium to release the new album by Joe Crepúsculo, we knew we could expect a promising video to go along with such catchy song. In Nuevo Ritmo, the Barcelona pop visionary is exploring the sounds of America (in all of its fragments). The clip directed by Manolo Vasquez starts out with some impressive blaxpoitation titles, and goes on to having Joel Iriarte exploring the hills on a donkey alongside pal Sergio Perez. We were eagerly expecting Wendy Sulca spoof, but we forgive them only because of the cool ponchos. The pair of loopy guys found some gorgeous ladies on the hill, a big twist to The Hills Have Eyes (indeed, more like Charlie Angels).