supercrepus

joe crepúsculo ~ supercrepus (producciones doradas, 2008)

in one year, joe released two albums: escuela de zebras and supercrepus. both ended up in 'the best of 2008' lists throughout the blogosphere and other mediums.
escuela de zebras was a compilation of songs while the 20 tracks on supercrepus were conceived as a piece with one theme: love. but you won't hear anything near those obvious lines like 'i can't live without you' or 'i love you'.
the name supercrepus is a palindrome, and just like this title, the album has this diferent ways to talk about love... even when it seems that isn't talking about love, at all...
the great thing about joe and the reason why he's getting a lot of (deserved) attention is his approach towards music and his idea of what is a pop song. he seems to naturally have this understanding and twist and swirl all the conventions and concepts to create a strange, odd and quirky universe where catchy tunes are everywhere... something like the air here on earth.

naive, uplifting and full of life second hand technopop with strange and perfect-to-sing-along lyrics!

(by the way, his next album will be out on october and it'll be called chill out. as joe tells, it sounds diferent from his two previous works, the main theme is the lack of love and the last song is sang by a church choir.)



01. baraja de cuchillos
02. el día de las medusas
03. amor congelado
04. amar en tiempos de democracia
05. los lagartos
06. caja de lluvia
07. sandra (with marta)
08. espada de damocles
09. el faro
10. águas pantanosas
11. los faunos (with jordi irizar)
12. capitán (with elsa de alfonso)
13. vente conmigo
14. ama y haz lo que quieras
15. la canción de tu vida
16. camino de vida (with el ortiga and thelemático rosa)
17. sabores de piña
18. no me acostumbro (with david rodríguez and la bien querida)
19. iván y laura (con daniel descabello)
20. el día de la sardina





site
myspace
buy it

junco y diamante

junco y diamante ~ junco y diamante (producciones doradas, 2009)

you may already know that i love the music scene from barcelona. lately i've been discovering a lot of great bands and acts that sing in catalan.
junco y diamante was one of the first discoveries and i feel that i should've talked about them a long time ago...
they are a duo:
1. david rodríguez - from the band los beef and the man behind la estrella de david and one of the most important musicians in barcelona nowadays, either for the music he makes and his work as producer (he produced the amazing debut album from la bien querida). he also is, in my humble opinion, who best describes the atmosphere from the city (or at least how i felt it when i visited it some time ago);
2. joël iriarte that you may know as joe crepúsculo and member of the band tarántula, another iconic figure that has been causing quite a fuss since last year with his edgy songs (tacky? genious? both?) and featuring his two albums (supercrepus and escuela de zebras) among the best of 2008.

here you'll find 4 songs, each dedicated to a diferent comarca (compared to a county) surrounding barcelona. a graphic and geographic exploration with free interpretations of those places.
it's beautiful, delicate, intimate and catalan.
('alt penedès' is lovely, probably the best song of this ep (?) and a collaboration with la bien querida).
three songs are sang in spanish and one in catalan.




01. alt penedès
02. solsones
03. pallars sobira
04. osona

you can hear four new comarcas at their myspace.
myspace

escuela de zebras

joe crepúsculo ~ escuela de zebras (producciones doradas, 2008)

lately, i've been listening a lot spanish pop (discovering things, rediscovering others)... spain has one of the most interesting, fresh and creative scenes.
and for coincidence i've been listening to artists that often work together... i've already posted 'romancero', from la bien querida. today's music comes from joe crepúsculo that appears as guest in the (beautiful) a.d.n. from her album.
the producer of 'romancero' was david rodríguez, that plays guitar in 'después de la muerte' and also has a side project with joe called junco y diamante (david also is the guy behind the awesome la estrella de david).
the artists above are among the most important of today's spanish scene, setting a more experimental approach on pop music.
'escuela de zebras' is one of the best albums of last year, according to various blogs, sites and magazines and is easy to understand why...
it contains creative tunes, mostly with electronics, transitions and synths. sometimes, the choice of sounds stay close to bizarre but it works extremely well to create joe's odd and decadent universe full of karaoke rooms, impossible loves, philosophy and simple subjects.
it is decadent but, also, very original. musically, it seems that is twisted and elements that would be questionable, like the use of screaming backing vocals or rhymes that don't really fit, sound extremely coherent.
joe crepúsculo has a peculiar point of view that sounds childish but in fact works as another angle on naivety ( what else to say about a guy that spends almost five minutes singing about the four elements of the nature... or about old people and what it takes be feel and act like one...).

(ps: couldn't forget to mention that this and his latest album are available to download on his website!)



01. escuela de zebras
02. los cazadores
03. gabriela (with dani descabello)
04. los cuatro elementos
05. canción estival
06. los cazadores parte 2
07. fiesta mayor
08. los viejos (with thelematico rosa)
09. la lucha
10. ya llega la navidad
11. después de la muerte (with david rodríguez)
12. suena brillante
13. la amistad



site
myspace
buy it