Digisagas - Una vuelta más sobre el eje imaginario

Una vuelta más sobre el eje imaginario,
Digisagas
Fuego Amigo Discos, Argentina
Rating 75
by Giovanni Guillén

If you were to ask a friend to describe Digisagas’ sound, solely based on their cover art, and the answer wasn’t jangly, sunny pop to soundtrack your super 8 film, you might never want to trust that friend’s musical intuitions again. On Una vuelta más sobre el eje imaginario, the Argentine band is being as straightforward as one can be through an album cover. Naturally, such directness will prompt the skeptics to state the obvious: this is music we’ve heard before. True. But I’d be lying if I said I always want to be challenged when it comes to new tunes. Sure, pop can bend the rules and push the envelope, but another inherent quality of pop (even indie pop) is how easy it is to enjoy. With Digisagas, composer Diego Litwiller and friends have produced a mini-album that is certainly easy to enjoy.

On first spin, it is tempting to lump Una vuelta… in with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and their self-titled debut. The song “Sale el sol” could accurately be deemed a cousin to “Everything with You” with its smirky vocal delivery and even the shameless addition of cowbells. Repeated listens, however, help distinguish the sounds as more than mere retreads. Whereas the Pains have always gone for those sugar high melodies, Digisagas, for the most part, inhabit a more relaxed soundscape; in fact, imitating the youth on the cover (kitten optional) could benefit the listening experience. Other songs, like “Paseando” and the closer “Colobrí,” float by languidly, employing few actual lyrics to allow the music to set the tone.

But, like most indie pop records, one shouldn’t just accept fun and worry-free arrangements at face value. It would be shortsighted to say the album is all nostalgia and hummingbirds. Just like the Arthur C. Clarke paperback found on the album cover titled Childhood’s End, one can see themes of loneliness and adulthood (and how it sucks) embedded into the record. This is pretty much summed up when Litwiller sings, “ciertas cosas no me hacen bien y las sigo haciendo no sé bien por qué.” We don’t know either, but at least we know this is another fine addition to the Fuego Amigo Discos catalog.

♫♫♫ "Te Vas" | Download Album | Facebook

Los Días - Sin una Raíz

Sin una Raíz, Los Días
Fuego Amigo Discos, Argentina
Rating: 73
by Giovanni Guillén

While researching more on Pablo Acosta and his self-recorded, self-produced project, Los Días, I found a blog that called attention to the fact that the album’s songs were all titled in lowercase. Somehow the omission of capital letters wasn’t the result of lazy tagging (some bands are very lazy taggers) but, rather, it worked to characterize the music: intimate, homemade tunes produced on Casiotones and acoustic guitars. If this description triggers images of a kind of “indietronica” album with a formula that was exhausted back in 2005, then Los Días' debut album Sin una Raíz deserves a bit more credit.

Armed with the exact same instruments, Pablo Acosta could have easily made a very different record. One that resorted to extremes in the bedroom pop genre: light and fun twee or something much more brooding and dark (let’s pretend for a second that chillwave doesn’t exist). Instead, Acosta went for a very emotionally consistent sound, one that abstains from extreme highs or lows. Maybe that description doesn’t quite hit the mark, either. I like to think of the album as neutrally charged, and, depending on the listener’s state of mind, it can produce tears or even warm feelings. Not all of the songs on Sin una Raíz are as successful at generating an intense response, no doubt due to the album’s short length; but when it works, it works very well.

On the album highlight “Arruinar,” Acosta’s lyrics go after the axiom that time heals all wounds (“y ahora que sabes que el tiempo nunca nos va enseñar a ser mejor”). The music, however, works to contradict this sentiment. Despite the drums and the guitar’s frantic, light chaos, the song produces a contemplative and bittersweet mood, suggesting healing is or will be occurring. At least that’s what I got; it feels very open to interpretation. And yet, it is that mood that carries through most of the record, even in some of its heavier moments (“el mostrador” and the title track are especially sinister), making it the perfect banda sonora to a rainy afternoon spent at home. To give some perspective, whatever playlist (be it a first love or breakup set) you have Yo La Tengo’s “Autumn Sweater” or anything by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in, this album will feel right at home between those songs.

♫♫♫ "hay más" | Download Album

Featured: Víctor Hugo - "Así es como se arruina un verano"

Featured: Víctor Hugo - “Así es como se arruina un verano”
Fuego Amigo Discos, Peru
by Pierre Lestruhaut

Considering Víctor Hugo used to sing in Mi Jardín Secreto, an indie rock band from Lima packed with Planetas-infused upbeat riffs, his latest single and closing track on Fonogramáticos Vol. 12 “Así es como se arruina un verano” is a considerable shift in musical style. Nearly every single person I’ve shared this great track with has had the same instant reaction of pointing out just how evocative it is of Ennio Morricone film scores. Only seconds into the track, you can almost feel the tension of an old spaghetti western duel building up. The initial heavy pounding beat and steady guitar strumming are joined by an almost frightening backing vocal harmony. Then the track morphs into a stunning series of chord progressions leading us into the inevitable grandiose climax and finale.

Most music that I would qualify as somewhat cinematic, such as Portishead or early Wu-Tang records, usually exercises itself in being sonically evocative of films and their scores through the heavy use of samples. Víctor Hugo instead directly embraces the same compositional form and structure of great Morricone climactic tracks like “L’Arena” or “The Ecstasy of Gold” in order to create something that emotionally brings us back to the experience of watching films. Released through Fuego Amigo Discos, “Así es como se arruina un verano” is unlike anything we’ve heard from the Argentine net label (and maybe even anything that’s ever been covered on CF). Yet this young label has already given us great singles by favorites like Los Migues and Luciana Tagliapietra, and it might just be starting to become the home of a series of interesting bands to watch.

♫♫♫ “Así es como se arruina un verano”
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