Blog: Club Fonograma

Video: Daniel Melero - "Supernatural"

Dec 5, 2011, 5:46pm Club Fonograma
Supernatural - Daniel Melero (2011)
Having half of our staff obsessed with teenagers and a majority of us still living the course-by-course campus life, it's safe to say we're often blinded by generational attachment. Or at least that's the feeling I get every time I spin Daniel Melero's "Tenes," one of the most beautiful ballads in years – a track that almost makes me start punching the wall for not listing it on 2010's Best Songs of the Year countdown, in which it deserved a top 10 spot easily. Perhaps it shouldn't be, but age is a chief constituent when appreciating any art [...]
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Jacuzzi Boys - Glazin'

Dec 5, 2011, 8:34am Club Fonograma
Jacuzzi Boys - Glazin' Glazin', Jacuzzi Boys Hardly Art, USA Rating: 54 by Andrew Casillas I have to admit: I did not like this record. It was a chore to sit through multiple times. Even when I kept delaying and delaying and delaying my review (although maybe one of those "delays" should be attributed to my day job), I couldn't work up the energy to think through an enthusiastic review. Admittedly, maybe this sort of scuzzy, power-punk-pop-rock wasn't in my wheelhouse. I was never much of a Gene [...]
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Las Ardillas - Las Ardillas

Dec 4, 2011, 1:37pm Club Fonograma
Las Ardillas - Las Ardillas Las Ardillas, Las Ardillas Chacho Records, Puerto Rico Rating: 81 by Carlos Reyes When asked about the significance of the title El Juidero (a slang deviation for 'the getway'), Rita Indiana Hernandez speaks about an inherited idiosyncrasy known as "la cultura diasporica." She isn't talking about the scattering of Jews outside Palestine in times of Babylonian exile, but about a congenital phenomenon in the people of the Caribbean. The regional shared link: feeling the need to run a way from settlement (either [...]
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Link Text:"El Tren"
File Name:11ElTren.mp3

Digisagas - Una vuelta más sobre el eje imaginario

Dec 3, 2011, 10:08am Club Fonograma
Digisagas - Una vuelta más sobre el eje imaginario Una vuelta más sobre el eje imaginario, Digisagas Fuego Amigo Discos, Argentina Rating 75 by Giovanni Guillén If you were to ask a friend to describe Digisagas' sound, solely based on their cover art, and the answer wasn't jangly, sunny pop to soundtrack your super 8 film, you might never want to trust that friend's musical intuitions again. On Una vuelta más sobre el eje imaginario , the Argentine band is being as straightforward as one can be [...]
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Link Text:"Te Vas"
File Name:digisagas-Tevas.mp3

Club Fonograma's Best Music Videos of 2011

Dec 1, 2011, 11:53pm Club Fonograma
MEANINGMORE DE MENTIRA MENTIRA
"Meaningmore" 12. TXEMA NOVELO (MENTIRA MENTIRA) Mentira Mentira, the project of Tijuana-born hard rocker Gaby, drops fiery hooks and silly raw enunciations that seem to be coming straight from yet another band that helped punk rock to finally break in 1991, rather than something that could be labeled under the "rock regio" tag. Part of Mexican label Vale Vergas Discos recent 7" compilation, their bafflingly restless "Meaningmore" features a video directed by Txema Novelo (who also handled Juan Cirerol's lovely "Toque y Rol") that, just [...]
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Bahía Inútil - Stand Scared

Dec 1, 2011, 1:05am Club Fonograma
Bahía Inútil - Stand Scared Stand Scared, Bahía Inútil Discos Río Bueno, Chile Rating: 73 by Carlos Reyes "So now is when you disappear, and now is when I hold my breath," says the heart-wounded opening line in Stand Scared , the debut album from Chilean four-piece band Bahía Inútil. Initially conceived as the solo project of playwright and theatre director Manuela Infante, Bahía Inútil unfolded its dramatic treatise with the adeptness of renowned folk composer Fernando Milagros, who serves as the producer, escort, and sailor of a [...]
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Link Text:"Horseback riding down the street"
File Name:05Horsebackridingdownthestreet .mp3

Video: Calle 13 - "Prepárame La Cena"

Nov 30, 2011, 9:00pm Club Fonograma
PREPARAME LA CENA
While Entren Los Que Quieren hasn't shed any of its initial criticisms upon release ( a few of which you can find here ), Calle 13's latest video from the Grammy-hoarding record, "Prepárame La Cena," is a sublime reflection of the album's most sublime track. The calm, almost robust song is greatly enhanced by its parent video. The video contains sanitized, yet undoubtedly powerful images of teenage human trafficking in Latin American countries. Special attention goes to the steady and nuanced cinematography, which walks that fine line between reality and propaganda. So we can sit here and complain [...]
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Las Liebres - Xauen

Nov 29, 2011, 5:34pm Club Fonograma
Las Liebres - Xauen Xauen, Las Liebres Triple RRR Discos, Argentina Rating: 69 by Carlos Reyes Folk rock: the self-assured music medium that's so persistently and intensely beloved and yet so difficult to be prolonged by those artists with conceptual ambition. Hailing from the province of Corrientes, Argentina, folk-rock duo Las Liebres makes a brave attempt to divulge folk rock continuum in their second full-length installment, Xauen (named after the Moroccan city). In all its creative mettle, the duo is devoid of interesting ideas, but those [...]
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Link Text:“Montaña Anti Atlas”
File Name:MontanaAntiAtlas.mp3

Video: Vincent Vega - "El Piso Se Va A Manchar"

Nov 29, 2011, 10:28am Club Fonograma
Vincent Vega - El Piso se va a Manchar
It was a bit disappointing to find out Uruguayan duo Vincent Vega wasn't actually named after the most intriguing character in Pulp Fiction (played by John Travolta). And that's as far as I can go with any kind of distress on this one. Like their compatriots Franny Glass and Carmen Sandiego, melody makers Matías González and Mauricio Sepúlveda have a serious affection for the serene surface of "la cancion melodramatica popular." As the pair gets everything ready to publish their sophomore album early next year, they've handpicked the breakup song "El Piso Se Va A Manchar" as [...]
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Anntona - Grandes males, remedios regulares

Nov 28, 2011, 7:08pm Club Fonograma
Anntona - Grandes males, remedios regulares Grandes males, remedios regulares, Anntona Gramaciones Grabofónicas, Spain Rating: 77 by Pierre Lestruhaut There's a particular sample in Grandes males, remedios regulares , the latest release from Anntona (guitarist of Los Punsetes), that serves as an interlude between the two-songs-in-one "ECI/Amorcitos," and in which we can hear a man with a heavy French accent saying "I want to fuck her" in regards to an American woman who's obviously shocked by the situation. Had I not been a huge Gainsbourg enthusiast I [...]
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Link Text:"Arruino todo lo que encuentro"
File Name:A2Arruinotodoloqueencuentro.mp 3

Fonocast #6: It's Not Me, It's You

Nov 28, 2011, 1:00am Club Fonograma
Fonocast #6: It's Not Me, It's You Fonocast #6: It's Not Me, It's You by Blanca Méndez and Andrew Casillas Not to be a total downer, but I want you to think back to your last breakup. Or, better yet, your worst breakup – the one that redefined and intensified your definition of heartbreak, the one that made you feel as if the sky was literally falling and the universe was slowly closing in on you and there was nothing you could do but wait for that crushing end in the bathtub in the dark with a bottle of Malbec and [...]
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Link Text:Download Fonocast 6
File Name:Fonocast6_ItsNotMeItsYou.mp3

Video: Las Ardillas - "El Tren"

Nov 27, 2011, 3:45pm Club Fonograma
Las Ardillas - El Tren
Anxiety is an insidious and treacherous feeling. Opening the doors to nothingness and feeding on your afflictions, it can choke you and leave you without indicating the nearest exit. "El Tren," first single and closing number off of Las Ardillas' self-titled LP carefully dissects this ravenous beast, without foreseeing any hope. The video clip, directed by Dede Ene, who conceives many videos for other Boricua punk rock acts, such as Dávila 666 and Los Vigilantes, has an aesthetic and graphic approach that echoes Hitchcock's Psycho. In fact, like the main characters of this horror film, bassist/vocalist Koki appears to be [...]
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Adrian Juárez - Tu Nombre Es Fresa

Nov 26, 2011, 9:24am Club Fonograma
Adrian Juárez - Tu Nombre Es Fresa Tu Nombre Es Fresa, Adrian Juárez Frigida Records, Argentina Rating: 81 by Carlos Reyes The indie kid totem is such a scary and sensible topic. It's hard to imagine anyone arriving at progressive pop without ever going through the cutesy-twee, folk-inflicted initiation. When going back to it, you could either cringe (taking part on the collective backlash) or feel nostalgic, but once in a while an exceptional album comes along and you can't help but to shoot back up into the dreamy clouds of [...]
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Link Text:"Bufandas"
File Name:05bufandas.mp3

Video: Dënver - "Los Bikers" (Segundas Destrezas)

Nov 24, 2011, 4:10am Club Fonograma
Dënver - Los Bikers (Segundas destrezas)
In the latest video from Dënver, band member and music video visionnaire Milton Mahan approaches the psyche and carnal turbulence of a young renaissance in a clip that is beyond an aesthetic exercise. Carrying Música, Gramática, Gimanasia's well-deserved status of a young adult masterpiece, Mahan has crafted a video that is full of corporal movement and still has the luxury of carving emotion through its soaring stillness. One year ago we described the song as one set "on midair tones, elliptical to its own tragic story," and this clip accomplishes just that. [...]
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Varias Artistas: Emme - "El Día del Zarpado"

Nov 23, 2011, 10:00pm Club Fonograma
Varias Artistas: Emme - "El Día del Zarpado"
"When describing a female artist, unless she is a child, do not refer to her as a girl , always use woman" noted our dear copy editor Blanca Méndez on one of my recent published posts. She's completely right. Gender terms are to be taken seriously, especially in their representation in pop culture. Among the many fascinating things about Lucas Marti's Varias Artistas, is the opportunity it provides to many of us in need to reflect on gender representation and idiosyncratic. It might not be the most intricate song in Se Puede , but [...]
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MP3: CLDSCP - "Sintonía Americana"

Nov 23, 2011, 10:13am Club Fonograma
MP3: CLDSCP - "Sintonía Americana" In our mildly enthusiastic review of CLDSCP's Niños Azules , we criticized the band's methods of paralleling sonic and lyrical literacy for the sake of acquiring catchy hooks. In the last line of that review we also predicted Leopoldo de Sarro and Andres Andinach would find gold the minute they found a channel for melodic succession, and that's exactly what they offer us in this stunning cover of "Sintonía Americana," a daring, almost heroic cover original to Argentine '60s rock icons Miguel Abuelo & Los Abuelos de la Nada. This track is one of the [...]
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Link Text:"Sintonía Americana"
File Name:Sintoniaamericana.mp3

Babe Florida - Depois Eu Te Explico Melhor

Nov 22, 2011, 9:36pm Club Fonograma
Babe Florida - Depois Eu Te Explico Melhor Depois Eu Te Explico Melhor, Babe Florida Transfusão Noise Records, Brazil Rating: 74 by Carlos Reyes Unlike album length, individual track timings are often discarded as narrative tools, even by the bands that employ them. Rather than swallowing the idea of it being pure personal choice, I prefer to romanticize this palpable artistic preference. In his debut film Asi , Mexican filmmaker Jesus Mario Lozano applied a 32-second margin to all of the shots of his film, on the studied notion that that's the amount of time needed to breach someone's attention span. [...]
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Link Text:"Coleção de Amigos"
File Name:07ColeodeAmigos.mp3

Video: Fakuta - "Aeropuerto"

Nov 22, 2011, 11:00am Club Fonograma
Fakuta - AEROPUERTO
December approaches and, in our landscape of music junkies and media publishers, it means it's time to sit down to contemplate best of the year lists. Among the many names that put out debut albums this year, Chilean indie sweetheart Fakuta seems like a sure bet to attain ranking omnipresence across the Americas and overseas. The closing piece and second single off Al Vuelo has been given the audiovisual treatment in an exquisitely framed and remarkably nuanced roadtrip by directors Pablo Muñoz and Rosario González (who were as whimsical in the clip for "Armar y Desarmar"). In this [...]
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Alex Anwandter - Rebeldes

Nov 21, 2011, 7:27pm Club Fonograma
Alex Anwandter - Rebeldes Rebeldes, Alex Anwandter 5AM, Chile Rating: 90 by Blanca Méndez The title of Alex Anwandter's latest work for me immediately triggered memories of the hugely successful team drama, Rebelde . And not just for the obvious reason but also because the music on Rebeldes feels so youthful, so idealistic in its pursuit of what feels right. All ridiculous drama aside, the characters in Rebelde were ultimately all teenagers with teenage concerns and teenage desires in a world that revolved [...]
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Fauna - Manshines

Nov 14, 2011, 2:08am Club Fonograma
Fauna - Manshines Manshines, Fauna ZZK Records, Argentina Rating: 76 by Pierre Lestruhaut If you happened to undergo your teen years as an indie rock fan (with most of your friends being roughly into the same kind of music) in Latin America somewhere around 2005, then you probably were the kind of kid staying as far away as possible from all the dem bow and cumbia rhythms that could be emanating from any speakers. Yet six years after suffering at every possible reggaetón- and cumbia-infused party, indie [...]
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Artist:01
Title:Fauna
File Name:SoundCloud
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