- Onda Temporal: DEMO
- Onda Temporal, Episodio 1: CAPULLO
- Onda Temporal, Episodio 2: ALBERTO ACINAS
- Onda Temporal, Episodio 3: SANIDAD MENTAL
- Onda Temporal, Episodio 4: LOS NUEVOS MAEVANS
- Onda Temporal, Episodio 5: ULISES ZARAZUA
- Onda Temporal, Episodio 6: ASES FALSOS
- Onda Temporal, Episodio 7: VERANO PELIGROSO
Showing posts with label white ninja. Show all posts
Showing posts with label white ninja. Show all posts
Onda Temporal, Episodio Ocho: White Ninja
Memo - material.
Abstrakt Muzak, Mexico
Rating: 79
by Sam Rodgers
material. begins in lower case, just like the album. We delve straight into the slightly tipsy first track's smoke machine fog, as if walking into Memo's set halfway. We've just arrived to hear the Austin-native's defiant and somewhat petulant claim: “You are not the end of the world.” This universally relatable phrase is repeated in an almost anthem-like chorus, but Memo Guerra doesn't seem concerned with fashioning a swaying, sing-a-long stadium hit. Listen closer; these lyrics aren't pussyfooting. This is a personal album and, at times, a private one, highly confessional, yet abstracted. The author has been jotting every thought down, from banal observations to poetic entendre, and these form the material for each track. Memo shares the process on “Restraint (parts 2-4 and 6)” (“from behind the shower curtains / I've always thought out loud / and made up songs about / makeshift offices and Vietnamese takeaway”) and then divulges, “then she turned scarlet / the color I most like her in.” It's hard not to blush with her.
In the first half of the album, Catholic guilt, bloody sheets, masturbating, and penis envy have all tumbled out of the singer's mouth. The first three tracks on material.mumble into each other, like Memo has invited you over and is skipping through the songs that have been helping him out through this tough time. No, no, this next one's awesome, he says. However, the five-minute plus songs never feel rushed or out of ideas. This makes the eight-track LP a satisfying length (despite his preoccupation with size). First single, “Separate Leaves/This Is The Line,” demands attention, it sprawls on the green, searching for a lost golf ball, slightly red in the eyes. From here, Memo takes respite in a half-track, “On the Rooftop,” where he finds some peace from the incessant disclosure before it. What comes next is material.'s only straightforward pop song, “While You Were Sleeping.” It seems stark compared with its forebears, with acoustic strumming and country music allusions, yet no less sonically engaging. Here, Memo comes out of the dejected sing-speak and asks us to hum along to the melody, a rallying signal to show the past/past loves that he, too, can make a digestible, happy tune. See? This isn't hard. Memo has woken up. With their eyes closed, antagonists look vulnerable, too. With this realization, it only makes sense that following track “Answers to the Questions” is instrumental. There's nothing to say when you've moved on.
material.explores many musical styles, never adhering to any one code. There are moments of lush Zero 7-like orchestration, braided Animal Collective-esque psychedelia, Badly Drawn Boy-experiments-with-distortion vocals, and Jim O'Rourke bite in the almost muttered, cutting lyrics. Borrowed and used deliberately, Memo crafts his own, though not ostentatious, sound. Perversely, this is both the album's charm and annoyance. Like the aliases Memo plays with behind his extracurricular projects, here too he seems comfortable putting on stylistic masks when the intention of the album seems to be to come clean. This is not always a distraction, however. In this make-up, Memo is, in a way, at his most vulnerable: an understanding that an awkward frame for admission, like a cheesy greeting card, says more about intent than the actual words within.
On the other hand, the sonc obfuscation threatens to derail the album's through line. The sitar of “Separate Leaves/This Is The Line” returns in penultimate track “Open,” but all sign of traditional instrumentation disappears in electronic closer “Portugal,” when the language of choice changes to Spanish, and, at one point, aggression replaces the ponderous quasi-depression of the rest of the album. While no doubt meant to be jarring, whether or not listeners dig being frustrated by the artist will determine how material. is accepted. It could be argued that Memo has designed it so, playing with the fine line between sincerity and pretense. One wonders what his past loves would have to add to the picture, but perhaps they were just as simultaneously intrigued and baffled by this–nonetheless sympathetic–anti-hero.
Video: Memo - "Separate Leaves"
Memo Guerra is awash with aliases, which he uses to explore distinct sonic projects (alone, or with bands like White Ninja); but he keeps his first name attached to the more straightforward song-writing led tracks. "Separate Leaves" is off the Austin-based, Monterrey-bred musician's new LP, material., and at first viewing, makes us think of Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) with an overt sense of humor.
The video, directed by Sefárdico, keeps a cheeky eye on death, religion, and a bad sell. The protagonist self-deprecatingly becomes the guru of his own expectations. Through the mumbled, layered chanting, you hear phrases like “false starts” and “second time”—echoes of a romance or a life that he wishes he could rewrite, but still can't clearly articulate. Maybe he's embarrassed, or the pain of separation still needs to subside. The tinkering of a piano and lush organs offer a solvent to the distorted, white noise pulse of the track, which underpins the ethereal loops and sitar, skipping like the mantric, disillusioned thoughts of the singer.
In turn, these sounds are mirrored by the play between the Jodorowsky shaman, psychic hotline, and introspective variety hour imagery of the video. Memo is seeking a balance between despair and hope and where one finds it. They say depression is just frustration with not being the person you want to be. By the end of the video, this incarnation of Memo has been reborn a man, taking control of the cross he bears.
Festival Nrmal, Part 1: El Evangelio
Picture by Pierre Lestruhaut
by PIERRE LESTRUHAUT
I. PURPOSE
It’s no mystery that this site has repeatedly stated its own admiration for Festival NRMAL and the kind of line-ups that they’ve put together over the past three years. I’ll point out the obvious: the curation is so good that it just makes other festivals on the continent look like overpriced crowd-getters where smaller acts have to play in front of a crowd who’s just waiting to see a big band that’s playing in the city for the first time in 10 or 20 years. And I mean what kind of crowd-getters does this festival have anyway? Ariel Pink and Sky Ferreira for people who only read Pitchfork? Brujería for old-timer metalheads? And ignoring Todd P‘s American-centric vindication of the festival, this is a solid forward-thinking platform that showcases plenty of emerging Latin acts. But then I think about my own self-centeredness and realize perhaps I’m only validating an event because it aligns itself with most of my own musical taste. And then I wonder, if I might be traveling too much just for something that could be another excuse for twentysomethings to get wasted...
II. FAITH
Finally reunited with half of the rest of the Fonograma crew that was coming into Monterrey (Enrique Coyotzi and Souad Martin-Saoudi), the festival started for us at Sergio’s for the Vale Vergas Discos Showcase. Selma Oxor put on a show inclining toward electronic abrasion and disruptive sexiness, though I still have a bit of trouble getting around her whole electroclash aesthetic. It was Soledad that really fucking owned the night, though. Before the show, I hadn’t heard more than a couple songs that I thought were pretty decent, but on Wednesday they were a sharply different band from the one I remembered: pretty much the kind that reminds you how much a guitar, a freakin tom-tom drum, and a whole lot of talent are enough to make a show that’s both intimate and wild. Back at the hotel, Coyotzi and I talked about how wrong we both were to have completely slept on their previous EP Fe. Now that I had the chance to give it a few more listens, I kinda already miss the band that played at Sergio’s.
III. DOUBT
Someone else will probably have a more elaborated reflection on the Chilena Banda Showcase that took place at Gómez on Friday and that featured Fakuta, Gepe, MKRNI and Alex Anwandter. I’ll just go ahead and point out that having these amazing musicians from the other end of the continent playing at an acute-angled corner in an outdoor venue was seriously one of the most unreasonable things I’ve seen in my own sparse experiences with live music. I mean, sure, seeing Gepe and Anwandter was something close to a fucking dream come true, but, come on you guys, these dudes deserve an actual stage where they can actually do their thing, not that claustrophobic attempt at a stage that they ended up playing at.
IV. DEVOTION
On to the actual festival on Saturday, after CF favorites Ave Negra, Capullo, and Matilda Manzana pulled out good (though very short sets) in front of small crowds in the early hours, Escenarios Rojo y Azul had a pretty good series of erection-inducing guitar acts for which my own expectations were high. Tijuana’s San Pedro El Cortez were the kind of act that lights up any crowd with just a few chords and a good dose of strident on-stage energy. Sure, they also thrive on own goofy on-stage antics, which just adds the kind of positive carelessness that makes for good visceral live rock. And, seriously, this was stuff that fluctuated between raucous and psychoactive, hysterical and resolute. In short, this shit spoke to me on many levels.
After that, Chilean psych-rock band The Holydrug Couple were pretty much the kind of mid-tempo dreamy rock band you’d expect them to be (which, fine, their record is quite good but I prefer falling asleep to them on my headphones and not at a festival venue). Then Protistas had to face the challenge of playing after Brooklyn act Parquet Courts (who pretty much pulled the best set of the afternoon) and deal with the bass-heavy sound at Escenario Rojo. Even though they were a bit short on the vivacity that has characterized so much their own recordings (maybe because you just couldn’t hear their guitars and Álvaro Solar’s singing that much), the rockist in my heart went on to accept the fact that well-rehearsed rock is mostly about hearing the songs you love, and I was reminded of how much I really fucking love Protistas. And how much I still fucking love guitars in general.
V. SOUL
Contrary to popular belief, in the evening, the magic was happening over at the Panamérika stage (or at least I’d like to think). I chose not to believe the Sky Ferreira hype and stood around for the entirety of White Ninja's loin-awakening series of mid-tempo sonic, soul-wrenching grooves. Since their set was made almost entirely out of Sounds Like Cocoon Fever hits (which, awesome!) I’ll be lazy and just steal a few lines from Carlos Reyes’ awesome review of it to describe what the show was like: “With sweaty grooves dripping into slow-burning acid, White Ninja’s flirtations with wavelength allocate the act as part of the exciting group of artists pulsating rhythm into faded synth-pop memories.” Still, hearing it live, this was some seriously penetrating stuff. The kind that magically reconciles the struggle between ethereal electronica and heartfelt soul.
VI. CLIMAX / DEATH
Almost every person I have talked to that has been to a Mueran Humanos show has told me of how an absolute must see it is, which is why I was surprised that Enrique Coyotzi was the only one of the Fonograma crew next to me when the show started. Although it’ll sound like a terrible cliché, the show the Argentine duo living in Berlin put on for us was the sort of climactic event the festival needed. And what will sound like an even more terrible cliché is how much words are lacking to describe the emotions elicited by their show. There’s a French idiom that refers to the orgasm as “la petite mort” (the little death), and listening Mueran Humanos play live with such a collision of energy, anger, pleasure, and sexuality, was conflicting on so many levels simply because of how their music so overwhelmingly depicts both pleasure and pain. I don’t really like singing along, but for some reason I found myself disturbingly shouting “Tu madre dice que eres basura” in front of Tomás Nochteff, and then immediately after that I was almost gushing because of how discordantly beautiful their music is.
VII. FAMILY
The most unanimously loved act around CF headquarters, María y José, saw the whole Fonograma male contingent at NRMAL reunited under the tent at Panamérica stage to see his performance. That being said, expectations were high as fuck. And Tony delivered. As he lit up a fire under that tent and induced his crowd into the biggest collective dance I experienced during the fest, we saw every facet of Tony’s artistic persona right in front of your eyes: the unknown kid from Tijuana singing over laptop beats, the internet-era enfant terrible as he dissed Ariel Pink, the eccentric self-worshiping artist, the refined music fan he became with his Tony Gallardo II persona, the elegant songwriter and crooner with his slower songs, and obviously the party starter that he’s always been. As I enjoyed seeing Tony unfolding every angle of his music that I love, and as I danced with the rest of the Fonograma crew and a few other friends, I could swear that, for a moment, Carlos Reyes was dancing with us too.
VIII. HELL
Out of mostly morbid curiosity Enrique, Adrian and I quite wrongfully left the Panamérika stage where Nguzunguzu were soothingly growing their set into a true muscle-challenging dance and decided to go across the border from Latino Hipster Land into the ghoulish darkness of Latino Metal Land over at Escenario Negro to catch Brujería. The huge blanket on top of the stage that read “TODOS SOMOS PRESOS” was probably a motto that a 16-year-old social reject that gets into metal for rebellious reasons might have found interesting, which quite curiously fits the profile of the people I would think are into a band like Brujería. I’ll go ahead and admit that I really don’t know shit about metal, to the point I just had to go into Wikipedia to figure out which subgenre Brujería fits into (Death metal?), so if I piss off any metal fans just know that my criteria here isn’t to be trusted any more than that of the kids who bought a ticket to the festival just to catch Sky Ferreira. That said, even accepting my own ignorance on the subject, it’s hard for me to really see the band as being musically or artistically interesting in any way. It seems to me Brujería isn’t much more than a politically thoughtless, culturally equivocated band that’s trying too hard to still be subversive some 15 years from when it actually stopped being, if it ever was.
Half an hour after Adrian politely declined our invitation to continue to see Brujería after he had heard about 30 seconds of it, Enrique and I proceeded to leave Escenario Negro as well. And as fatigue defeated our own thirst to hear more music, the fusing echo of Juan Brujo’s own riotous fantasy, Javier Estrada’s all-referencing global bass, and Daniel Maloso’s cold disco were the last sounds that I heard at Festival NRMAL. By then my own thirst to hear good music played live had probably been satiated for at least another year, and I could finally leave Monterrey having fulfilled my selfish need for cultural consumption.
Album - All-Stars
All-Stars, AlbumARRCO, México
Rating: 60
by Carlos Reyes
“Album has not died (because to some extent, it never existed)” states the website of the ceaselessly divisive electro rock band from Monterrey. Earlier this year, and prior to the band’s self-proclaimed (and ultra romanticized) piece of perpetual history, they released All-Stars, a full-length record that is loyal to the act’s career-long juxtaposition of sound texture and musical space. Although not conceived as a career-concluding album, All-Stars suffers as an episode that neither carves the band six feet under nor brings Album afloat.
Throughout the years, Album became Monterrey’s eternal up-and-coming band. Whether it was an outcome of egocentrism or them just sticking to their guns, the band never really broke through. They came pretty close though. Their pristine 2008 album Cancer Baby showed a band capable of critical and popular absorption, but as lead vocalist Roger Cámara confessed, it was their attempt at an experimental record—“because pop is always more popular than whatever we make.” All-Stars carries hits and misses from Album’s extensive catalog of LPs and EPs. Dreamy tracks “This is not working” and “Nunca Morir” carry the Album fandom to mindlessly acquainted moods. Other tracks (“Spoken Word” and “The Road Warrior”) inherit the indigestible voice decoding that, to this day, comes off as a plain Album-ism rather than a beneficial narrative tool. Not that this is a polarizing record by design–these are tracks that venture through hedonism.
Standout track “The Artist” bursts stormy waves, beeping, and emotional swelling. This degree of symphonic bleeding is what I’ll choose to remember Album for. As they sing “thanks for watching us, we’re everywhere now,” you can’t help but to recognize the value of their undefeated hobby. All-Stars leaves many blank spaces on its sleeve. While occasionally bright, it puts its anxiety in front of its accompanying melody, making up for an almost impenetrable experience. Since its formation, Album never made itself available for a potential viral exposure, exhausting its chances for continuous recognition. Yet, as All-Stars proves to be, their work asks for a thorough and intimate contemplation, perhaps the biggest bequest of the pop-estranged, ungoogleable act.
SXSW Entry #7: White Ninja, Bigott, 3Ball MTY
SWAGtentalo
After encountering the most dick-headed SXSW volunteer (“the line’s over here, brah”), I entered the Sounds from Spain showcase, which featured the largest assortment of La Liga jerseys this side of Madrid (go Real!). The whole time I was thinking, “if Gio and I are the visual equivalent of the mipster, who the fuck are these guys?! Spipsters? And is that said with or without the lisp?”Anyway, I was there to see Bigott. He was really good! He was in high spirits throughout, barely pausing in between songs. And, for once, I saw a SXSW crowd engage in ACTUAL dancing (to a song called “Cannibal Dinner,” no less!). There was also some ace guitar playing to “Dead Mum Walking” and some colorful band interplay to “Sparkle Motion,” not to mention that this guy is just as funny and charismatic live as on record. If anything, I’m bummed that this was his only SXSW showcase—I’d definitely see him again if I had the chance.
(I also caught Nite Jewel last night. All I’ll say is, it took her 30 minutes to soundcheck and the synths were STILL way too compressed in the mix. Oh, and also La Vida Boheme, which is apparently Spanish for “tries too hard.”)
Last up for the night was the unstoppable short bus that is 3Ball MTY. The energy inside the venue was palpable. No one was wearing pointy boots (BOO!) though Gio made an excellent point that 3Ball’s staff was “very chuntaro looking,” which is a half-win. As for the show itself? TOTAL. FUCKING. FRENZY. 3Ball’s 45-minute MegaMix was a bevy of crowdsurfing, obstructive camera phones, and, oh yeah, I had to break up a fight. Regardless, the set was more than impressive, and its abrupt end due to a 2 a.m. curfew nearly set off a small skirmish from overhyped fans.
Leaving the show, I realized I still hadn’t gotten a sense whether 3Ball MTY is an actual project, or merely short-term (particularly for Erick Rincon, who dictated virtually everything onstage as if going through the motions). As “Inténtalo” remains #1 on the Billboard charts, the opportunity was theirs to take this festival by the balls. Yet here we were, with only one show aimed at the long ago-converted. Who knows, maybe there was a good reason. But we’ve known for months that “Inténtalo” is a game changer of a song—now should have been the time for 3Ball MTY to become a game changer of a band.
Video: White Ninja - "PCU"
White Ninja - Sounds Like Cocoon Fever
Sounds Like Cocoon Fever, WHITE NINJA
Records Are Dead, México
Rating: 88
by Carlos Reyes
Musical and visual composition tends to respond well to otherworldly abstraction, especially when the surfer of its wavelength is in full dialogue with the human condition. Part space opera and part velvety chillwave, White Ninja’s sophmore album is a triumph of gorgeous digital sequencing, analog proverb, and individual grooving. Two years ago, Leo Marz astonished us with his debut Guacala Los Modernos y Su Electro, a spellbinding record we described as “a series of adrenaline rushes, jammed technos, and unbounded clutter.” Marz’s comeback is less militant in its execution, equally intricate in its assortment of beats, and more affecting to the creator’s well-harvested, shoegazing morph.
With sweaty grooves dripping into slow-burning acid, Sounds Like Cocoon Fever dignifies its self-descriptive title in ways that are as encouraging to the human strength as Space Odyssey’s monoliths. With little or no resemblance to the “No Retreat No Surrender” premise of his debut, Marz now finds himself fully immersed and motivated by blissed-out machinery. White Ninja’s flirtations with wavelength allocate the act as part of the exciting group of artists pulsating rhythm into faded synth-pop memories (Neon Indian, Washed Out, Toro y Moi). But unlike these contemporaries, White Ninja has the psychotropic vertebrate to travel within its own grooves. When, in the first sequence of compression, springs start bouncing in “El Alfa," you just know this will be an album about proportion and digital blossoming. This is a song that progresses from a perplexed urban number to a sort of futuristic cumbia.
Marz, who is also a member of Monterrey’s non-linear pop band Album, knows a thing or two about juxtaposing plot with space. If “PCU” and “Regrets are the Best” sound like pastiches bouncing on synthetic ropes it's because the 6-piece album practices discontinuity to recruit and retreat from its own form. When you have something as exceptionally executed as the sequencing in this album, it’s best to embrace it. Not to say White Ninja is template-dependent, but upon multiple listens one learns to recognize its patterns and motifs; an exciting moment for any technicality buff who doesn’t mind records to losing their romantic mysticism. Released digitally by Marz’s own netlabel Records Are Dead and soon to be published on cassette via UK’s Abastrakt Muzak, Sounds Like Cocoon Fever is one of the most exciting releases of the year.
While the sequencing drives White Ninja’s orbit, the emotional cues in the album arrive mostly at the clever inwardness of its vocals (by Tavo Figueroa). Particularly in “Patty Hearst,” where Marz abandons narrative as means of approach and goes straight to your soul. It’s almost as if the holy spirit of La Lupe took over with its “Fever” and poisoned White Ninja’s nervous system in the most frenzied and sweaty way you could possibly think of. Album finale “Hit and Run” resolves all the ideas of a truly whimsical, self-resolving album. It might be short in length, but Sounds Like Cocoon Fever is a profound knockout worthy of international appraisal. Six tracks and two interludes are in conversation with one another, grooving collectively in what’s bound to become one of the year’s most progressive records.
Video: White Ninja - "El Alfa"
One of last year’s rock revelations White Ninja (Guacala los modernos y su electro), is finishing up their second release titled Sounds Like Cocoon Fever, we’ve heard some rough cuts from the album and they’re sound more electronic than ever. But don’t expect to hear Alexico’s whirling vocals on this one, he was only a guest on the last one, so it will be interesting to see just how well the band pulls it off without his magic. This band from Monterrey is said to be one of the highlights from the highly lauded (and pounded) MtyMX, and caught the attention from outlets like Pitchfork and Impose. The bouncy and sweaty “El Alfa” is the first cut from the album, and has one of the weirdest videos around. It's visually stimulating to say the least.
Video: White Ninja - "Zombie Town"
Guácala Los Modernos y Su Electro, White Ninja
GUACALA LOS MODERNOS Y SU ELECTRO, WHITE NINJA
Records Are Dead, Mexico ****
Rating: 86
By Carlos Reyes
Ripping soaring tracks prove to be more than pure cacophonous noise in White Ninja’s opera prima, the revealing Guacala los Modernos y su Electro is nothing short than exhilarating. Frenzied from beginning to end, this is an accessible and complex first album, one of those rare findings that although tiny on the surface, bring variation to Mexico’s exceedingly modular rock scene. White Ninja is a project by Leo Marz who is also member of Monterrey’s very own pop extraordinaire band Album, he has also recruited Richi Garage in the drums and Monterrey’s terrible-enfant, religiously messed up kid Alexico, who adds crazy random, and not so random lyrics to these songs.
White Ninja is urgent and quantized, loud but melodically logical, sings of math rock as opposed to mad rock. From the album cover, one learns to register a sense of sequencing, expect this kind of continuum in six cerebral pieces that seem to desire liberation from their own quantization. Not that these songs are constrained per say, but they’re folded and outspreaded marvelously. In this sense, we can think of Guacala Los Modernos y Su Electro as a self-resolving album. Luckily, the aesthetics here still hold up a confrontational stance on evenness which makes the record much more exciting. This is less gritty and loud than the stuff from Nene Records, but there are plenty of pedals and variations to embrace it as a post-punk kind of record.
The album is skillfully organized following a theme: “No Retreat, No Surrender.” Each track is separated by two-second intermissions shouting the theme over and over. Perhaps they lack a bit of the scene-locality esteem that a bands like New Age have, but this it sure compromises to Monterrey’s hot indierock scene. Such is the case in “MDTCS” with Alexico screaming “hay muchas bandas que cantan en ingles”, it never goes deeper than that but they do register such trend and have a blast doing so. After a deferment intro, White Ninja quickly embellishes its sound in “Zombie Town”, one of the album’s peaks so huge (as huge as T.I.) that it can only been seen as a track assembled (rather than thought) on blueprint ideas, layers and roars.
The band could be described as a series of adrenaline rushes, well backed up by jammed technos and unbounded clutter. “Shizzleizzle” is a nice place to determine if the band’s over hyper approach is adequate or exhausted; there’s no fatigue here, those many layers and sequence repetitions acquire a purpose, to blow or maybe scratch those modern minds of yours. “Vitacilina” captures the modern listener’s chances for/to information, “todo esta en la red, bájalo tu mismo.” The most serious age arrives with “Fuck B”, a highly explosive track with cut-above bold measures. The final track, “No Retreat No Surrender” encloses the album’s feed on momentum, accidental and impulsive urges. Sick!
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