“Limbo” by Majorette (Music Video)

majorette banda uruguay

This is the first video clip by Majorette, an ascending band from the city of San José.
The song is titled “Limbo”, and you can find it on their first EP, an eponymous work that can be freely donwloaded here.
The members of Majorette are Martín Curbelo (vocalas and bass), Mathías Briccola (guitar), Andréz Pérez (piano, sequencers and backing vocals) and Ismael Geribón (drums).

The video for “Limbo” was directed by Elisa Barbosa, and edited by Ismael Geribón. It was shot on Capurro (San José).

I’ll do my best to review the band’s EP soon. I have had it for a long time already, and every song has been clearly labored at with patience and a lot of dedication. If “Limbo” sounds like your cup of tea, then you can’t go wrong with the remaining songs on offer. Get their EP here at zero cost, or tune into their soundcloud profile.

majorette EP

Casablancas Release Their Debut Ep: “Please Don’t Be Like Me”

Good ol’ Pete Townshend. He releases a chunky bio, and the standout passage is the one in which he confesses he fancied the ass off Mick Jagger when he was young. Actually, he mentions that he fancied another part of the Rolling Stone’s physiognomy. But let’s leave it at that, OK?
It just had to be.
Then, Kelly Clarkson announces the release of her first “Best Of” package, and when you glance at the tracklist “Sober” is nowhere in sight. “When beauty meets ignorance they shout in the street”, right darling? What’s your excuse?
It just had to be.
And now, Casablancas release their first EP, “Please Don’t Be Like Me”.
And is it any good?
It just had to be.

Casablancas, my half-blood brothers from the Merseyside. I’m going to write a movie script about the time I spent with the core of them when I was younger, maybe someone at Disney buys it for the next “Star Wars” trilogy. For chrissake, they hired Billy Ray Cyrus to do a show! It can’t be that difficult…

This EP (download it for free) was recorded by the band and their producer, Álvaro de León.  Casablancas comprises Martín Rela on voice and guitar, Syd Jay on guitar, Nacho Lorenzelli on bass and Seba Moroni on drums. Álvaro de León added guitars, piano and Hammond to several numbers.
In case you want to put faces to names, there you go. Yes, I know. It would be delightful to have one of these magnificent photographs in which the whole band is featured in a clockwise manner. But I never learned to use Photoshop, I was too busy learning how to write movie scripts, OK?

Martín Rela

 

Syd Jay

 

Nacho Lorenzelli

 

Seba Moroni

 

The guys define themselves as a group of friends who love making music and having a good time on the liner notes. But that doesn’t mean they are doing things by half measures. No, not at all. They’re a true example of commitment, and a firm reminder that anything can be accomplished by sheer strength of will and devotion.

“Please Don’t Be Like Me” features five different compositions, all penned by the band. You have the two songs they had recorded when Casablancas came around a couple of years ago, and the band played their first “Pepsi Bandplugged” competition amidst pussy-willows, cattails and fluorescent adolescents. They are “0800 Casablancas” and “Liverpool”. They have been revamped, and their present selves are a lot beefier thanks to the fuller-sounding production.

But the new cuts are the ones that make more of a lasting impression, for the simple reason that these songs reveal a sense of dynamics that I just didn’t know the guys had in them. Besides, Martín’s voice has grown different – there’s more of a gruff in it. Time doesn’t go by in vain, I guess. It’s only natural that the moon and the sun will change places, as if in a race to meet the ribbons of the morning first.
And cigarettes can fuck up one’s voice in no time, also. Whatever. Martín’s vocals now suit the material a great deal better. Continue reading

Casablancas To Release Their Debut EP, “Please Don’t Be Like Me” (Teaser)

Casablancas are back from the atmosphere, with drops of Jupiter in their hairs.

Well, not really. They’ve just released a new video to promote their upcoming EP, that’s all. But (if you’re a bit like me) that’s the best possible news you could ever read. I love the guys, they were the recipients of the most badass post I wrote in the history of this blog (more badass than all the characters from The Expendables I & II put together). In an alternate reality, we’re all brothers, traveling through the English countryside on the back of a train, strumming mandolins and singing about love and life with sartorial eloquence.

Their debut EP is going to be named “Please Don’t Be Like Me”. Watch the clip above, wipe the tears of joy from your eyes and then like Casablancas’ page on Facebook. If you send them a message mentioning MusicKO when doing so, you’ll be entered into a competition for a motorcycle like the one you can see below. Talk about badass…

Free Uruguayan Music For Download: “Amigos Imaginarios” By Picnic

"Amigos Imaginarios" By Picnic

"Amigos Imaginarios" By Picnic

Picnic is a Uruguayan punk band whose debut EP has just become available for download. It is named “Amigos Imaginarios”, it has four punchy cuts (mainly dealing with vices, personality and emotions too torrid to mention) and you can get it for free here.

It also has a cover that would make Frank Zappa, The Mothers of Invention and the whole cast from “200 Motels” proud. I have discovered that if you stare at it for a couple of minutes and then look at the wall, you’re seeing a hybrid of Guernica, the movie poster for “The Lovely Bones” and the face of Doc Brown. Well, I did at least. I suppose that’s what happens when you have been fixedly watching nothing but Placebo videos the whole week.

Boy, “The Bitter End” is badass. And what about “This Picture”? Atomic. If Picnic ever shoots one like these, then I’m creating a category on the blog solely for them.

Picnic Playing Live. Left To Right: Mato, So and Germán.

Picnic Playing Live. Left To Right: Mato, So and Germán.

Anyway, “Amigos Imaginarios” is a greatly-enjoyable EP. Sassy references to The Ramones abound, with songs like “Él Es Punk” [He Is A Punk] paying a direct homage to compositions such as “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker” and “Judy Is A Punk”. The ensemble playing is good, and the way the voice of singer Sofía is juxtaposed with that of her cohorts (guitarist Mato and drummer Germán) is really ear-catching (specially on the title track). Continue reading

Cínica Releases Its Self-Titled Debut EP

Cínica’s Debut Is A Five-Song EP You Can Download For Free On Their Site

Cínica’s Debut Is A Five-Song EP You Can Download For Free On Their Site

Cínica was the first Uruguayan unsigned artist that I featured on MusicKO, way back in April.

Well, the band has just released its self-titled (and self-funded) debut EP. It has five songs: “Panacea”, “Conciencia” (my personal favorite), “Piso Frío”, “Velo Gris” and an acoustic take on “Panacea” (which closes the disc).

You can get the whole EP for free on their website.

A great way for them to send off the year!

Congratulations!

RostbiF Releases A New EP – Listen To It Online For Free!

RostbiF (Mauricio Rode, Guido Quintela, Lukas Künzler and Pablo Gonzalez) with Andrés Gorlo.

My good friends from RostbiF have just issued a new EP. It is named “La Última Palabra” [The Last Word], and you can listen to its five songs for free here. You can also download the songs to your computer, bring them to any party you go and impress everybody with your knowledge of Uruguayan music. I don’t know if that will make you a big hit with the women at the party (let’s face, it probably won’t), but at least you will be singled out as the one with exotic tastes. That is always a good start…

This is the tracklist:

1- Derrumbe
2- Camino
3- Alice In Cocaineland
4- Paloma
5- Uniformes

This time around I wrote the lyrics to the song “Uniformes” [Uniforms] – I based it on a draft guitarist/vocalist Lukas Kunzer sent me. I have wanted to pen a song with that name ever since I listened to Ken Stringfellow’s song by the same name. And the Birdman has got a (terrific) song that is named like that, too. It is featured on the album “All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes”. Continue reading

Soundays (Uruguayan Independent Artist)

Logo Soundays

Soundays Are Pepelo Curcio (vocals and guitar), Fede Sacarelo (guitar), Juanma Oholeguy (drums) and Diego Placeres (bass).

Soundays Are Pepelo Curcio (vocals and guitar), Fede Sacarelo (guitar), Juanma Oholeguy (drums) and Diego Placeres (bass).

There is a 1975 movie named “Dog Day Afternoon” which tells the story of a pair of bankrobbers who are led by Sonny Wortzik (played by Al Pacino). The movie was directed by Sidney Lumet, and it is still considered a seminal work in the history of anti-establishment films.

I remember that movie every single time I come across any Uruguayan brit pop band. It is the perfect summation of what these bands are attempting to do over here, and I specially think of the scene in which Pacino starts screaming “Attica! Attica!” (an allusion to the Attica Prison riots) in a desperate attempt to make those who have been forced into their company to join them and fight against the system. It just reminds me all too clearly of the fight that such Uruguayan bands aim to put up, and the reactions they cause for all the right and wrong reasons.

I was already disenchanted with the first wave of brit pop bands that emerged in Uruguay (led by Astroboy and Boomerang), if only because those bands always propounded that paying an unveiled homage was synonymous with being creative, and that singing in English challenged the status quo of Uruguayan music. It did not. The ways those bands imitated the music created elsewhere only spoke of a lack of imagination, and it polarized the music scene in a way that meant you couldn’t like La Vela Puerca or No Te Va Gustar if you listened to the Beatles or The Who. I just wonder how many of the musicians involved in Astroboy or Boomerang actually realized that the favorite album of Sebastián Teysera (La Vela Puerca’s singer) was no other than “Tommy” by The Who.

Soundays is a little different from these bands because their influences are certainly wider and that they are very good instrumentalists, but the band is not far removed from other Uruguayan ensembles that sing in English in the sense that you don’t have a thorough understanding of who they are when you listen to their songs. When you listen to their latest EP (“OLHA”; it can be downloaded for free on their site), you just get a mix of styles and influences that don’t add to a cohesive identity. You get to know the bands they appreciate, not the band that they think they are, or the performers that they want to become.

The British influence is all over “Colourful Face” and “Locked Love”, songs that are reminiscent of bands like Blur and Franz Ferdinand – and not necessarily in the best way. For its part, “To Hawaii” adds a West Coast vibe through harmonies that are a bit uneasy, as is the garage rock of “She Feels Like The Weather” (a cut that sounds like The Jam at their most primeval). But it must be said that both “Ghost In My Town” and “Don’t Matter If It Hurts Lights Will Guide Us To The Sun” are distinguished compositions that elicit full-on performances. The latter in particular provides their drummer with a ready chance to take off, and I have to say he is one of the most exciting Uruguayan drummers I have listened to in quite some time. Continue reading