Ya no existes, Odio Paris

My Hunting Hat Burns, GPSYMTH

"A narrative of traveling, of dreams, and of the urgency to follow paths through the woods before they vanish into the dark..."

aNNa, Hacia las rocas imantadas

Back in the 1970s, Pink Floyd showed us the way to create excellent, concept albums after publishing four in a decade (The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall). Before them, King Crimson released In the Court of the Crimson King (1969), The Beach Boys Pet Sounds (1966) and Johny Cash Songs of our soil (1959). There were some rare examples of concept albums in the 90s and 2000s like Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2001) by The Flaming lips but the digital revolution has changed the artist's (and audiences) approach to music and hardly any band consider their albums as a whole but mainly as a bunch of independent songs that people can purchase and listen to individually. So it is very refreshing to see the effort of bands like Hacia las rocas imantadas. In their latest EP (aNNA, 2014) they focus their attention into the book Después de la tormenta by David Bailón (member of the band) and produce three songs that combine spoken word and hypnotic, galactic melodies.




Through their embracing melodies and their narrated stories, we learn more about the fascinating universe of this band. With the first song, El norte de las brújulas, we embark on a sideral trip into unknown galaxies that we feel are going to be much better than our own sodden planet.
After that, we float in the darker, repetitive territories of La pérdida del sentido natural del tiempo which, somehow, connects us with the likes of Fennesz and his great sound landscapes, just in time to finish of with Mala Bicha, the song most related to their first EP, Noray (2013) which seems to send us back into those distorted, yet melodic sounds of The Magnetic Fields, forcing us to initiate a listening loop that began in Noray and continues in aNNa that takes us back to Noray to...

Good creative music that defies time and space. Music from outer space, from the silence of the Universe, the beauty of the stars and the embrace of the orbits worth adventuring into.

Life Prowler, No age

One time is all I need to know my job is complete...
No age's teenage angst anthem exulting quality and emotion through repetition and distortion.

Death Valley 69, Sonic Youth

Deep in the valley, in the truck of and old car...
It remains disturbing, yet fascinating.

Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, Thom Yorke

There is no doubt that any Thom Yorke's project is worth listening to. No matter how different and unpredictable they might turn out to be, no one should overlook any of his compositions.

Tomorrow's Modern Boxes opens with a rather quiet, Bonobo/Caribou-like melody and, as soon as Yorke's voice appears, it captures our attention. Subtle, constant, without fireworks and big drama. A plain good tune.

Guess again! (the second song) makes it clear that in this occasion, Thom Yorke is reaching out towards The Eraser sound (when it comes to melodies) but with Radiohead's distinctive voice. After layers of sound and voice modification, it is always nice to listen to his voice again.

Interference and its sparse notes brings us close to the emotive world of Yorke while he claims over and over again "I don't have a right to interfere". Even though he is actually interfering more than ever with our emotions.



The mother Lode swifts a little towards the Atoms for Peace realm. A more danceable tune that still preserves the intimacy that spreads over the whole album. Dubstep beats and Yorke's voice: pure delight.

Truth ray slows down the beat once again and the melody becomes almost bare. The importance rely on the details, the clinking chime bells, the reversed voice, the heartwarming atmosphere.

There is no ice (for my drink) is the most Portishead-like of all the songs in the album. The Third Portishead, of course, the dry, percussive, Gun Machine one.

Pink Section continues the unfinished melody from There is no ice (for my drink) and takes it into another level, more melancholic and somehow piano-driven one to transform a dry, metallic song into a warmer one.

And Nose Grows Some, closes the album nicely with a return to Thom Yorke's voice.

Overall, an album with less experiments but a great deal of feelings. A perfect company for a rainy winter afternoon.

Majesty, Madrugada

So am I... good or bad