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It is common among the inhabitants of the Canary Islands to use the expression ‘to look at the cloudscape’. A cloudscape is a picturesque formation of clouds one can easily get lost in, enraptured by its ephemeral existence. Such an incantation fits with the songwriting process. While clouds are moved around by the wind, get their colour from sunlight and their shape from changes in temperature, pressure, and electrical charge, the songwriter in creative mode ‘observes’ a melody he has created out of nowhere and moulds it into a shape as guided by intuition.

Right since they first met in 2018, Fajardo has been fantasizing about the possibility of having his songs arranged by Trilitrate. As that was taking form, some admired musicians such as Marc Enseñat (Monkey Nuts) and Diego Hdez (Keiko, The Conqueror) joined forces with this neoclassical trio, alongside three of Fajardo’s usual collaborators: Manuel Campos (Rosvita), Jordi Tost (Gos Binari, Parmesano) and María Navidad (Tostadas, Mesa Camilla). So when all that came true his ideas easily turned into songs that were both dynamic and nuanced and expressed in an understated style. The resulting set of songs then became an album aptly entitled ‘Intuición’ that was artfully recorded by Javier Ortiz (Estudio Brasil).

‘Intuición’ is an ode to observation, music and friendship. An ode to survival, in short. As the Fuerteventura-born musician puts it himself, -I entitled the album ‘Intuition’ because I feel that the essence of my creative will resides there (…). Indeed, the album addresses multiple issues taking a poetic stance, making imperfect and yet beautiful reflections that always skip over the obvious. The musician’s intuitive musings on those issues work their way into each of the songs. He reflects on the challenge of fatherhood in ‘Deidad’; not having a clue about anything in ‘Accidentes’; missing the pleasure of traveling for the sake of it in ‘Geometría / Geología’. The burden of reasoning (Aprender-Desaprender) becomes a volcano but, like the frenzied rush of being on stage, it is washed away by the sea, purified in saltpeter. We transcend. We arrive at a mountain where the podomorph engravings are so compactly built into the rock that it is almost impossible to spot them in daylight (they come out at night from the lichen-covered trachyte). The witches of Tindaya will greet you in the footsteps of our ancestors. I’ll wait right here for you.

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With twelve albums under his belt, a trilogy of albums with N (Hellmut Neidhart) and an endless flow of collaborations released on labels as diverse as Abgurd, Drone,TIBProd, Mystery Sea, Eclectic Reactions or his own (SeriesNegras), Txesus Garate has become a key figure in ambient and contemporary noise music, as well as in activism and audiovisual manipulation (alongside Paralux).

Although the origins of this restless explorer in the Basque experimental scene are in the harsh sounds of industrial music, his take on music over the last 20 years (either as Tzesne or as a member of Gutural, guZural or Kkopu) has evolved towards simpler, concrete approaches to composition that, while still managing to take many different shapes and forms, result in a highly conceptual body of work that is both suggestive and dreamlike and yet musically unconventional.

Indeed, with this idea of nuclear and semantic simplicity of sound -of the modeling of time- in mind, Tzesne ran into ‘Voltereta’, a 2017 album by Daniel Ardura (Ensaña, Alado sincera, Sonio) that uses harmonic decontextualization to bend and curve the fabric of folk music to such an extent that the foundations of the genre are literally turned upside down. In this new EP, Tzesne seizes six of those songs and makes them his own, reinventing the essence of Ardura’s initial idea. ‘Ateretlov’ is a shift towards a space where Ardura’s original pieces can be re-signified. Tzesne embraces atonality, makes room for cracked electronic sounds and ultimately uses this new formal space to stage this one-of-a-kind interpretation.

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The same way that there are records that smell of nothing -‘What do things that don’t smell, smell like?’, the poet wondered -there are records that give off an intense scent of homage. Eau d’hommage. Homage, which comes from the Latin word hominem, behind which there is usually a person to whom one wants to pay homage, redundancy aside -more abstract entities are also paid homage, such as nations, which I find difficult to understand: there is no one who receives the honors; I understand that this type of homage is about a self-homage-. Or, more than one person, there are usually several people, since to pay tribute to someone you need an honoree, but you also need homage-giver. Or several honorees and homage-givers, so this becomes a kind of bacchanalia, not necessarily carnal -in fact, they tend to be more of a spiritual, almost ethereal type-.

We start from the premise that Joxan Artze (1939-2018) is a really homageable guy: an avant-garde poet in his first books -from which come the texts collected here, as lucid as playful-, willing to mix poetry with other artistic disciplines, whom some have placed within a movement called ‘visual poetry’ -again, such labels mania-. Musical poetry could also be, given the large number of musicians who have put melody to his poems -all of them embodied by the great Mikel Laboa, creator of the national anthem ‘Txoria txori’, which is sung even by the rugby players of Aviron Bayonnais, and whose lyrics are believed to be already popular, when in fact the belong to Artze-. Always against the tide, above all fashions, innovating, searching, machete in hand, making his way through the thick jungle of official poetry. Sometimes experimental (Edipo berriari) and/or political-social (Amaren sabela), other times lyrical (Euria bezain garden) and/or spicy (Atso otsoa). A rara avis, but completely contemporary.

On the other hand, we find the tribute artists, two of them, IbonRG and Enrike Hurtado, both with a long musical career, who got together one fine day to pay tribute to our beloved poet. IbonRG continues here the path opened in his first album, ‘Hil zara’ (2019), working the voice both naked and accompanied by the piano; and Enrike Hurtado experiments, as in his solo projects Azunak and Bazterrak, with software developed by himself. The pieces that come out of it, eleven in total, are quite varied: they range from the most organic a cappella to the most electronic instrumental, giving special prominence to the txalaparta -instrument recovered for artistic purposes by Joxan Artze and his brother Jexux, by the way-, played in the old style -with a single wooden plank-, passed through the softwares created by Enrike -which grind and reorganize the sound-, or even playing the piano as if it were a txalaparta -with airs of the late Chick Corea-. And that is how this act is consummated, as a tribute I mean. A homage, which does not consist of saying how good you are, how tall, how handsome, what a nice mustache you have. A homage instead, which is like a starting point, an inspiration, kind of I take some little things from you, but I am going to do other little things, my own, not yours copied, but new ones, inspired, more closely, or remotely, by yours. Every act of creation is, in the end, an act of recreation: nobody creates anything -another redundancy- out of nothing. Every act of creation is, then, an act of homage, and this one in particular is a very particular one to Joxan Artze, to his/the poetry, to his/the incessant search, to his/the lack of conformism. And it is, ultimately -although it may seem like a slogan of a funeral parlor-, a great tribute to life. Thanks to the honoree and to those who have given us so much.

oMOrruMU baMAt. Eau d’hommage, Aritz Galarraga.

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Thanks to the encounter between two artists such as the Madrid-born -Uruguayan roots- Conrado Isasa (A room with a view), and the Madrid-born, Copenhagen-based Ignacio Córdoba (Fuego, MAGIA), the album you have in your hands captures a unique confluence of talent. An intersection that comes from distant orbits indeed, which nevertheless complement here in the form of a stunning musical body.

With four albums under his belt, the last one just released this very same year, and thanks to an abysmal sensitivity and an articulation of tonal discourse that is pure delicacy and simplicity, the passing of the years has given Isasa the key to his own space within the international instrumental guitar scene. He began some time ago to explore the intimate recesses of memory, up until revealing little by little, partially and carefully, in chiaroscuro, the refractory legacy of his own life and family experience. Isasa courageously lays it out before us, thereby achieving the most difficult thing: to turn his life into music, to touch the universal. On his side, coming from the punk scene in Madrid and with wide experience in the international experimental music and improvisation circuits, we could define Córdoba as a master of secular ceremonies: a body conductor of electricity -both alien and his own-, an eternal apprentice and a professional errorist whose ultimate goal is to detonate the comfort zones of any potential watertight musical discipline. Always, in order to transcend prejudices and expectations from a brand new, unexpected, changing and inclusive place, where the limits imposed by scholasticism will be blurred.

Recorded during Christmas, in the garage of Víctor Ávila’s (Escaire) house in Elche and without acoustic insulation or soundproofing of any kind, Isasa and Córdoba have delivered an album that steps into the frontier, that contradicts as well as alters anything preconceived to continually veer towards surprise. This album marks a milestone in the career of both of them, as well as being a liberated and unexpected gift that not even those closest to them could have ever imagined. Thank you.

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After releasing a beautiful EP called ‘Fórmula’ last year, Peña are back now with their first studio work entitled ‘Carreiro’. A surprising debut, not only in terms of transcending folk, but also in terms of contemporary music coming from Galicia.

Using their own roots as a point of departure, the band formed by Toño Magariños (diola, Unicornibot), Rubén Abad (Cro!, Trilitate) and Elena Vázquez (Trilitrate) has been able to weave together an exquisite body of songs, which combines simplicity with idiosyncrasy and formal bravery. For, in ‘Carreiro’, the subconscious pulse of popular music is represented to us in such amplified harmonies, that overflows our listening experience in extraordinary ways.

Welcomed with a wall of organs at the very opening of ‘Burato’, then we witness with emotion the harvest, whose liturgical description seems to fit perfectly with the metric of the song. But wait, the apparently heartwarming ‘Selva’ hides criticism of certain superficial eco-friendly statements, just as in the 5/4 of ‘GPS’ one could ask oneself if –Estamos ata os collóns de estar sempre conectadas, ou non? (…). One way or another, in the end, we are left with the feeling that love remains in each and every one of these songs, although ‘Bandeira’ is probably the one that defines the album better.

An album that works as a return to the present, as an hypnotic call home: a familiar space where images of our childhood are projected, although we discover in them some elements subtly rearranged now… not everything seems to be exactly where it was.

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Two years after its eponymous and revealing debut, Les conches velasques return now with this new collection of songs, such as an invitation to community interlacing, dancing on deuces and threes… entitled ‘Celebration of the profane trance’.

What began as Pablo Jiménez’s (Picore) personal project of exploration, has become a collective in which Jesús Landa, Thomas House (Sweet Williams, Charlottefield) and Sergio Segura participate (the latter has been also in charge of the recording, along with Cristean Barros). At the same time, the mudéjar rock from their first album crystallizes wonderfully now, here, in the form of popular music without a town, just contemporary and universal.

With repetition as method and celebration as goal, in this verbena we enjoy an inclusive songbook with the essence of Pedro Salinas and the poetics of Miguel Hernández, but there is more. At the same time, Les conches velasques are capable of integrating the works of -no less than- Nass el Ghiwane, Agapito Marazuela or Hamid Alemmou, all of whom blend into the mix organically, as if it was Les conches velasques own repertoire.

Now, the air with which the Zaragoza band officiates and the agility with which they perform, end up impregnating this ritual with a unique libertine spirit and street flavor. Surely this music is a proof about essentialism and eclecticism being not exclusive. On the contrary, here we can enjoy their complementarity in the form of a legacy, an electrified ancestor. Les conches velasques projects a recurrent yet hidden question against the wall of our consciences. One that applies to the collective imagination that reigns in our beloved Iberia:

Is this is Occident?

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El relevo alemán release their fifth album this next Friday 16th of October on vinyl and digital. Stream ‘La séptima extinción from today, fully and exclusively, at our website.

With more than a decade of career, many concerts, four EPs and five albums on their back, El relevo alemán has become one of the reference bands in the Iberian underground scene. Now Cristina Arroyo, JC Peña (Estoikov) and Javier Otones (Tremolino, Soul rubbers) stand before us with their best album to date. A title that, from the first play, opens up our imagination…

Someone said -The albums by El relevo alemán can only be recorded by Javier Ortiz (…). That’s right, once again Estudio Brazil have been able to capture the intact slap, the hard, sharp, and forceful crackle with which the Madrid trio stuns its fans’ hair on the front rows of their shows. Once again, it sounds nourishing. Just from the enigmatic title, song after song, this album is full of veiled references and inexhaustible material to be unraveled during a -comforting- active listening experience. In words of JC Peña -I’m less and less in favour of commenting on the lyrics, but I can tell you that this is the album I’m most proud of, there’s no doubt about that (…). All yours, enjoy.

Tilde release its third studio work, entitled ‘Algae’, this coming Friday 25 September on vinyl and digital. Now, from today you can listen to this album exclusively on our website!

Since Tilde formed in 2009 (with two EPs and two albums after that) Lluvi Farré, Mati Pando, Carlos Sánchez, Carla Suzart and Mario Vélez have defined a very idiosyncratic way of composing songs. This way comes to fruition in their gorgeous new studio release, ‘Algae’. Recorded live and without artifice, the Barcelona band manages to strike a difficult balance between subtlety and accuracy. Moving in countercurrent direction at all times, Tilde write up metrics and chronicles from the sidelines, drawing on song structures as unpredictable as they are rich in harmonies. These structures accommodate their very personal writing style, one which seems to be in constant search for disambiguation and which lays out a double figurative plane before our eyes. The album’s intimately reflective songs are projected onto this plane through a humble voice that is both conscious and flame-throwing.

If in ‘Animares’ (2017) we discovered a band that stood out for their bravery, in Algae Tilde have shown us their most lyrical and Andalusian side, while putting their finger on a sore spot of towering proportions. A mammoth-like effort that expands in multiple directions.

Salva Alambre releases his second studio work, entitled ‘Electromagnetismo’, tomorrow Friday 4th of September on both vinyl and digital formats. A day before, that means today, you can already have a listen to the whole album exclusively at our brand new website! Enjoy!

After his wonderful first solo effort ‘Matemática ingenua’ (2018) and the double single ‘Frenesí’ released not long ago, Salva Alambre is back with his second album. Although it cannot be considered a concept album as such, it does bring together a series of ideas about one of the four natural forces of physics in the known universe. Hence the title ‘Electromagnetismo’.

Alambre uses the concept of ‘Electromagnetismo’ as an intellectual pretext from which to delve into a series of songs that make up a prism of pop music. Indeed, it is through this prism that we can make out the said force and even theorize on the physical laws governing it, but, beyond all that, Alambre pulls us into a distorted and denatured musical universe of planes with dizzying angles for us to revel in. A maze of warped mirrors in which to get blissfully lost. What a triumph.