A new video from these great indie folks that make up Casablancas has just become available. The song is named “Please Don’t Be Like Me”. The first thing I thought when I watched the clip was of Donovan playing his very own equivalent to The Smiths’ “This Charming Man”. I could visualize such a thing frame by frame, in full Technicolor. All in the eye of my mind.
Yes, I know.
I should have directed “Pineapple Express” myself. Hollywood, so much to answer for…
Cool song, “Please Don’t Be Like Me”. A very playful melody, meretricious camera angles, wailing sirens in the background, terrific hairdos. Is there anything else you need? Sign on the dotted line now.
I wrote about Casablancas recently, in one of the zaniest posts MusicKO has ever known. And by all reckonings, that’s saying a lot. Catch up with the original review here. Don’t forget your parachute with the flag of the Rebel Alliance.
A new Uruguayan pop artist, Andrea Deleón Santos issued “Bruja” [Witch] at the tail end of 2010. “Decidir” [Decide] was chosen as the first single from the album.
The song stands as a very lilting ballad, with a clean cut arrangement that gives Andrea’s voice a great chance to shine. The song is also well-devised in structural terms, and although personally I don’t like the middle eight that much the whole composition holds together undeniably well.
I hope to review “Bruja” sometime soon. Meanwhile, enjoy the official video for “Decidir” below. (Lyrics in Spanish and in English attached at the end of the post).
There’s something that I have always wondered… just what did happen to Igor (the blue donkey that acts as Winnie The Pooh’s dear friend) to look so despondent? I mean, the poor thing looks as if a meteorite the size of Australia hit him squarely in the forehead and his brain fell out his left ear.
My theory is that poor old Igor listened to Tom Petty’s “She’s The One” album and his faith shattered. Like mine did when I listened to it. Because it wasn’t a proper album by any stretch. Petty had just two truly good songs which were “Walls” and “Angel Dream”. And to be fair, they were not just good – they were plain terrific. The things is, he built absolutely everything around them. The rest of the album is just the lapse of time that lies between these two songs. Or these four songs, to be more accurate – Petty included two different versions of each to pad the album out. And that was just atypical, not to mention disheartening. He had never done something like that before.
Well, last night it looked as if I was going to finally review “She’s The One”, and such a prospect was not really an upside one. Because I adore Petty, and I would hate having to pan him. Yet, a sudden twist of fate brought me into contact with the guitarist and singer from Suburbio [Suburb], a Uruguayan band with a tight, nice take on rock fusion. The guy’s name is Nicolás Sanchez, and he has just finished recording his first solo song. It is called “Lejos” [Far Away], and it is a nice acoustic track that stands as an interesting stylistic detour from his work with Suburbio. It is going to be part of his first solo album (which he is going to begin recording on November).
And around August, Suburbio is also meant to start working on its first album. (Listen to the band here.)
Below you can listen to “Lejos”. I have attached both the original lyrics and a translation into English.
Oh, and by the looks of it I am more likely to win the Wurlitzer prize than to review “She’s The One” now. I will review “The Last DJ” instead. Which is spotty by all reckonings. But at least it is an actual album.
LEJOS
Lejos de todo lo que no me hace bien.
Prefiero escaparme, no quedarme a ver
Lejos cierran las heridas del ayer
Pero las marcas no se borran de la piel
En la distancia encuentro aire otra vez
No siento el frío y me acostumbro a estar bien
Era verdad el tiempo nos hizo mal
Hay cosas que nunca se pueden arreglar
Era verdad el miedo nos hizo mal
Hay tantas marcas que no se pueden borrar
En mi balanza pierde peso lo que das
Estando lejos no se si quiera regresar
La soledad regala calma otra vez
No siento el frío ya no quema en la piel
Era verdad lo que brillaba ya no brilla mas
Algunas luces se terminan de apagar
Era verdad lo que quemaba ya no enciende mas
Algunas cosas no se pueden arreglar
Es que ahora entiendo no esta mal
Salir a respirar
Verme de afuera es ver lo que sentí
Es que ahora entiendo no esta mal
No querer regresar
Verme de afuera es ver como seguir
Intento seguir…solo intento seguir.
FAR AWAY
Far away from all these things that do me no good
I choose to run away rather that keep on watching
Far away yesterday’s wounds can heal
Yet the scars do not fade from your skin
In the distance I can find air once again
I feel no coldness, and to feel nice is OK
It’s true, time did us wrong
Some things can never be fixed
It’s true, fear did us wrong
There’s so many scars that you can’t erase
What you can give weighs nothing on my scales
I’m far away, and I don’t feel like coming back
Solitude gives me calm once again
I don’t feel that coldness which could burn my skin
It’s true, what was shining now no longer shines
Some lights go out once and for all
It’s true, what was burning now can no longer start
There’s some things that can never be fixed
Because now I understand, there’s nothing wrong
In feeling what I felt
To look at me from the outside is to feel what I felt
Because now I understand, there’s nothing wrong
In not wanting to come back
To look at me from the outside is to see how to carry on
I try to carry on… I just try to carry on
A new Uruguayan record label has launched. It is named NADIEQUIERE Discos (official page here, Facebook fan page here), and it has some bands I already covered on MusicKO (such as Casablancas), and other bands like The Bear Season that I’ve always meant to review but that are still on the pipeline because I’m as peripatetic as Ryan Adams. You know, I actually look a lot like Ryan – the only differences are that he has tons of hair, that he can sing and that he can play guitar. Oh, and that he has dated Winona Ryder.
The label also has a good handful of artists that are completely new to me, which isn’t surprising because (as those fabtastic Swedes sang) “I’m living in a box but I come out when opportunity nox”. I hope to get to know them better soon…
In the meantime, give NADIEQUIERE Discos a look (official page, Facebook fan page – whatever excites you more). Of course, you need to understand Spanish to read these pages. But if you don’t, that shouldn’t be that much of a problem. I mean, how many people who are regular opera-goers know Italian? Eh? And how many people could make sense out of the wreck that Tommy was narrative-wise when it was first issued? Poor Pete Townshend, I read he did almost 1,000 interviews to cover those narrative deficiencies. Lessons learned, kids? Do things right the first time around.
Do you remember the post I published last month in which I announced that both Grubb and Miguel Campal had released their respective debut albums? Admit it, you do – it was the closest you came to an epiphany when reading a piece of music-related news ever since you learnt Paul was not dead.
Well, maybe not. But the bit in which I insulted Five For Fighting was fun.
Anyway, that eventful day I promised Miguel I would cover his album on MusicKO. And since I forgot to cross my fingers, now I find myself floating over a strange land, with a sequined showbiz moon keeping me company as I do the hard drive equivalent of spinning his record.
Leaving aside allusions to other artists, arbitrary jokes that only three people would get and quotations from “Chalkhills & Children” (which even less people would understand, notwithstanding I supplied the name of the song and linked to the album it was on), I must say that forgetting to cross my fingers when talking to Miguel was actually a very good thing.
I became acquainted with a really, really fine album in the shape of “Espiral” [Spiral] – an album which is a worthy addition to the imaginary of works detailing how resolution is circumstanced by emotional frailness (try Lucas Meyer’s “Un Accidente Feliz”, and Laura Chinelli’s “Historias de Invierno” for good related listens). An album where the singer manages to turn dejection around, and make it become the kind of beauty that only experience can name between smiles. An album that is “dark, yet glowingly alive”, to rip off some bloke that wrote the preface to a book by Joseph Conrad I once bought in a moment of madness.
Miguel released “Espiral” two months ago, in an online-only edition. And since Miguel adheres to Bob Dylan’s dictum for living (IE, “money don’t talk, it swears”) he decided to make it a free download.
“Espiral” is a pop/rock album in the most vivid sense of the word. Musically, it connotes the work of tunesmiths like Paul McCartney and Noel Gallagher, with a clear debt being paid to the production techniques used in works by either. And the vocal melodies in particular remind me a lot of Blur at its finest.
The lyrics themselves are good in relation to the music, IE neither distracts from each other, and their concomitance is dexterous (the processed ballad “Michi” and the spacious “Deseos” [Wishes] are very organic examples). Yet, they are functional in terms of form. Continue reading →
“Espiral” [Spiral] is the debut album of Miguel Campal (download link), a Uruguayan musician and producer who is better-known around this pleasant side of the globe as the guitar player for Grubb.
Obviously, that name might mean nothing to you in the States (in the same way that normal folks here have no idea who Willard Grant Conspiracy or Drive-by Truckers are) so a few quick facts are in order:
1) They play a mixture of rock, funk and soul, and they play it well.
2) They issued an 8-song EP in 2008, including both studio recordings and live cuts.
The Musicians Around The World feature is devoted to chronicling the lives of both Uruguayan who are traveling abroad, and foreign performers who come to Uruguay in order to promote and develop their art.
In the first part of this feature, I had the chance to speak with young Uruguayan singer/composer Florencia Cano. She is going to travel through the US shortly with some friends, and she will take advantage of the time she spends there to try and promote her music in what is undoubtedly the biggest market in the world.
Florencia Cano
Q: First of all thank you so much for your time. I’d like to ask you to introduce yourself to all the readers of MusicKO.
A: Thank you for the chance to do this. My name is Florencia Cano, and I was born in Montevideo (Uruguay). I love singing, and I come from a musicians’ family. My father is a jazz musician, and my mother was part of many different rock bands in the ‘60s. I was always attracted to music, but it was only when I became 20 that I realized how much I liked it, how much I enjoyed singing.
At first I sang pop songs, and the band I was in sort of leaned towards country… it was something that sort of happened whenever we were rehearsing and playing. And that wasn’t really something I enjoyed. Then, I began studying operatic singing. That’s what I really like. It’s what I enjoy signing best. I love fusing it with pop. And since I’m a soprano, I like to take my voice as high as possible, make it explode in high notes and then contrast it with lower passages. I like to take my potential further all the time. I am devoting my life to singing.
Q: I understand that you are developing a style of your very own, that your music is not something that could be labeled in a univocal way. Rather, it could be labeled in multiple ways at once. Can you tell everybody about what you are doing? If possible, could you define it?
A: The thing is, I love music on the whole. I listen to lots of different genres, I appreciate mostly every style that you could listen to. I love tango, and I love rock. I love opera. I’m also fond of Jazz. And I believe I began doing things in a certain way, and that way changed as time went by, simply because I’m in a search process. I like to combine lots of things.
Q: But if you had to pinpoint just a couple of genres, what would they be?
A: Well, nowadays I have a couple of compositions that are a bit reminiscent of Ani DiFranco and Jewel… songs I perform only with my acoustic guitar. These are songs I really enjoy playing, but mostly from a personal point of view. They bring me a lot of calm. They are songs that I like to keep to myself. What I want to share with others are the more operatic numbers, the ones where I combine rock with operatic singing. These are the songs I decorate the most – I love decorating things, making them sparkle… There’s nothing I love best than giving a single song lots and lots of different ambiences.
People have told me that the songs I write are a bit like movies. I begin dealing with something specific, but I end up creating a whole world. My characters are the kind everybody ends up relating to.
Q: So, as a composer you have that gift which someone like Joni Mitchell had of narrating what is personal in a universally-relatable way. Is that the right way to put it?
A: Yes, I like that concept, I like to think we are one and all the same. We all have the very same feelings at some point or other in our lives. That is why there are songs that everybody loves, no matter where they are or which language they speak. Continue reading →
Casablancas are Martin Rela (vocals & rhythm guitar), Syd J. Gerones (lead guitar & backing vocals), Nacho Lorenzelli (bass guitar), Freddy Suarez (keyboards) and Seba Moro (drums & percussion).
It’s a little known fact, but it’s absolutely true. H.G Wells (one of the founding fathers of science fiction) did spend some time in Uruguay. He was in the country during the summer of 1879 – 1880, in the seaside town of La Pedrera. Accounts of his stay there are unanimous, if only because the population of La Pedrera back then consisted only of 8 people, 3 dogs and 1 dalek.
We reportedly know that Wells used to wake at 7 in the morning every single day, walk through the beach until dusk and then come back to his little cabin. He did that the whole summer.
Then, on the final day of his stay there he clenched his fist, pointed it to the balmy sky and screamed at the top of his lungs, “SHIT, ISN’T EVER ANYTHING TO DO IN THIS COUNTRY???”.
He then had a kind of mystic experience. It is said he saw something blazing in the sky. If he had been Caetano Veloso he would have written the lyric that goes “and my eyes/go looking for flying saucers in the sky”. Instead, he dreamed up the story of the Martians landing on Earth that you can read on his seminal work “The War Of The Worlds” (1898). He turned the joyous dunes of La Pedrera into Horsell Common, and he came with a killer virus that sent the poor old Martians to kingdom come simply because he caught some scorching disease while he was in Uruguay, and he had to go to the toilet six times per day for three years afterwards.
A Tripod From "The War Of The Worlds" Raising Havoc
This history is little-known because there has always been a kind of multinational conspiracy to keep Uruguay off fictionalized works. Powers too evil and too daunting collude to keep the effervescent South American country from raising its head in the world of literature.
And in a certain sense, some things have remained the same in Uruguay ever since Wells paid us that veiled visit. There’s still people who scream at the sky out of sheer boredom, and lament their lack of prospects. They vent their frustration in different ways. Some play soccer and marry Argentinean models, some have music blogs where they write about anything that comes into their minds, and some others pick up their guitars and play good old rock and roll, paying a direct homage to the best British and American music that ever existed. Continue reading →
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.
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 →
I have been writing about unsigned and independent Uruguayan artists for over a year now, and the feedback I get makes it clear you enjoy the coverage. So, it’s only fair to assume you would like to know even more.
Well, those of you who understand Spanish can check this new fanzine. It is named FTR (“For The Retarded” – talk about self-deprecating humor!), and it’s devoted to Uruguayan artists that are yet to achieve mass recognition. And the site is worth a try even if your understanding of Spanish is not spotless – you will still get to listen to all the MP3s that are featured.
I know, I know, that feels like going to the librarian and asking him for books that have big pictures only. Hey, but in the same way a picture paints a thousand words, the MP3s which are included on FTR convey all that is said on the actual posts. Just follow Bob Dylan’s immortal advice: “Don’t think twice, it’s alright”. Continue reading →
