Video: Philipina Bitch - "Seis Arriba"

There’s a slight possibility that we’ll be making another (maybe last) compilation soon, while we decide if this site will go on to next year, and if you’ll be able to download another one of our seriously great releases, there’s a bunch of great stuff hitting our mail. Releasing stuff on December is never a good idea (unless you got a Christmas carols album), if you’re album is too small to make an impression chances are music bloggers and the general public will be too distracted by family or Best of the Year lists. Just in case we don’t get to review your album before the year ends, know that we’ll push it a few weeks over into the next year and see it as a 2010 album.

All this behind the curtain talk deals with Philipina Bitch, a very cool Chilean band that’s getting popular among our staff (along with Monterrey’s White Ninja and Mentira Mentira). We’ve set up one of their songs for an upcoming feature and the album titled Vecindad Maldita is traveling our way already. For the meantime, they released one of our favorite music videos of the year. “Seis Arriba” is exhilarating and the video is a visual knockout, nothing short than a grandiose spell of haphazardness.

Los Odio!, Los Odio!

LOS ODIO! LOS ODIO!
Arts & Crafts, Mexico
Rating: 49
By Carlos Reyes

Los Odio! is the latest all-star ensemble composed by Paco Huidobro (Fobia), Quique Rangel (Café Tacvba), Jay de la Cueva (Moderatto) and Tito Fuentes (Molotov). First let’s mention that this is the first local release from Arts & Crafts Mexico, a very smart move from a really good label. Los Odio! will hardly breakthrough its border, so it’s highly unlikely to get a broad international run. The band sounds nothing like the current indierock scene which is totally fine, except that just like Los Concorde, this is very disappointing (and you can tell I really wanted to like it).

First, let me say I like the bands they play in (yes, even Moderatto), but while this band might reunite their backgrounds it doesn’t add up to much musically. They lack personality, signature, a distinctive sound and better stories to tell. Not to say they’re not talented, they actually get the individual execution part right, but everything else feels disjointed and just patchy. “Pelos en el Mouse” stands out right away, it’s undeveloped but funny and over the top (as it should be). It’s hilarious actually, while writing this the song shouts “que tú no eres quien, tú no puedes criticarme, tienes pelos en el mouse también.” It’s that juicy character that’s missing on the rest album, most songs sound like a lazy Fobia or a Moderatto without makeup.

It’s hard to depart their origins when the new band lacks an identity. “Cruda de amor” almost gets it right, an anthem-like almost grunge tune about a hangover, a physical state where even cumbias and mariachis are harmful. Other songs go from funky (“Superpompis”) to wacky (“Odio”), while they can provoke some head shakes and toe-tapping moments, they’re just too quick to grab them. The fact that “Disculpa Nena, Yo No Soy Un Hippie” ages from birth-to-death as one listens to it tells how transcendent it is. If anything, they do throw in a great one liner “yo soy el unico pendejo que te cre.” Los Odio! is ultimately an album run and rushed by attitude rather than musical essence.

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Video: Maluca - "El Tigeraso"

Maluca’s “El Tigeraso” had profiled itself as one of the year’s hot songs but we weren’t expecting Rita Indiana y Los Misterios, Valentina Fel or Lido Pimienta to come and surprise us all. Not that our like towards Maluca has gotten smaller, it’s just that there’s much more to choose from and we’re applauding such fortunate circumstance. It’s been many months since she wowed bloggers across during SXSW week and she’s been touring with the Mad Decent crew since then. I get the feeling they’re taking way too much time to expose her album, they usually do that. While we wait to hear other songs other than the really awesome “El Tigeraso”, here’s the video. Cans in your head! Seriously, it would be dumb if MTV Tr3s doesn’t take advantage of this.

Epic Handshakes and a Bear Hug, Wild Honey

EPIC HANDSHAKES AND A BEAR HUG, WILD HONEY
Lazy Recordings, Spain
Rating: 83
By Carlos Reyes

If you’re able to look away from such a beautiful artwork, let point out that this album has been standing around me for a while. The psychology behind it makes this album hard to analyze and harder to give a rating. After numerous spins and many days of going in and out of it, most of my concerns with the album have evolved into virtues. Like Bigott or Antoine Reverb, Wild Honey’s decision to sing only in English doesn’t translate as a problem at the time of retrieving emotion or making their themes come across fluently. Epic Handshakes and a Bear Hug is the debut and proclamation of Wild Honey, a great new act charged with good-to-great songs and boosted by its wall-of-sound timbered spirit.

It’s important to emphasize the need for repeating spins if possible on a prolonged time; it’s really the only way to fully appreciate the album’s simplicity and how at the end everything sums up to “a big parade.” This is the overall endearing project of Guillermo Farre and his friends, based on Madrid and bringing hooky melodies for hooky hearts. They got the potential to internationalize following the Pitchforkian trends and the fair offering of European acts that are able to prosper with such audience. Wild Honey sounds a bit like Real Estate, The Mountain Goats, Woods, perhaps even Camera Obscura. One would expect such an album to drown in its influences, but they pull it out adding their own spice: a calculated dose of twee pop.

The album opens with the whimsical “Whistling Rivalry”, a nice ukulele based track with handclaps and whistles about aging, “Were we ever that young?” It follows with the moistly and beautiful “1918-1920”, which serves as the sonic landscape of the entire album. Some songs reach such a level of intimacy that one would swear a couple of newlyweds are singing them. At the other end, it’s able to be politically conscious in “Kings of Tomorrow” by trusting their piece of music rather than making some kind of boring political statement. In a way, they serve upon folk to spread the message. “One Word Prayer” struggles to structure its lyrics, so the vocals are changed into a state of uncommon accelerations that although rushed, work great in a song about mourning.

In “Gold Leaf” they manage to relocate their folksy sound to make a bossa-nova chant bright and simple. Most of the album carried by Guillermo’s vocals (he sounds a bit like Jorge Drexler) but occasionally a girl or two show up to steal the attention, in this song they sound as beautiful as Natalia Lafourcade. They even manage to make a rolling road-travel song out of the self resolved “Brand New Hairdo”, “I’ve got a brand new hairdo just to persuade myself that life has order and direction, and that there’s a place where I’d like to be.” Wild Honey holds a monumental-like disposition that carries its power of simplicity quite well, while managing to sound big and tall in its dynamics.

♫♫♫ "Gold Leaf"
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Entre Rios - "Frontera"

Our friends from Zona Indie (Argentina) premiered a new song by Entre Rios titled “Frontera” as their November pick on the Music Pact Alliance. This is the first cut from an upcoming EP. The song happens to feature Josefina McLaughin’s beautiful vocals; she’s the girl from Nubes en Mi Casa, although I can’t tell if this is a collaboration because there’s no perceptible variation in vocals. Both bands have been compared on the past so this featuring was truly unexpected. In case you missed it, Entre Rios scored a spot on our Top 100 countdown with “Salven las Sirenas”, they had another vocalist back then, oh gotta love transitions.

♫♫♫ "Frontera"

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