JULIO IGLESIAS

 

You know him as the guy who did the duet with WILLIE NELSON, but Julio's career started more than a decade before he moved from Spain to Miami. Dude had hits in German, Portuguese, German and Italian in addition to crooning in English and his native Spanish. 1980's Hey! might be his pinnacle of swinging Spnish pop - there are some syrupy sweet crooners and some tracks that should have been on Love Boat or Fantasy Island montage segments. This tape is appropriate damaged (read: 'well loved') and some of the cuts present as extra weird or slightly tweaked, but I feel like this is a come-up when you're turning songs like "Morrinas" into cavernous burners. Look, there's a reason why Iglesias is a household name, and Hey! is a good reminder that it's not just about the radio hits. 

HEY!

AVERSIO HUMANITATIS

I wish that I could share the Sentient Ruin description with you....instead I will just offer the sounds. 

What are the sounds? Apocalyptic and bleak black metal from Spain. 

Those are (these are) the sounds...and they are (they were) gorgeous. 

LONGING FOR THE UNTOLD

BANDA DES FEMER // SVNYA

 

Ramshackle buzzsaw Spanish punk from the only two bands I've ever heard of from Menorca. You've heard of Mallorca? Welcome to Menorca. I think these punks are mostly Barcelona based now, but hoooooooooo boy does this shit scratch an itch if you like your punk ignorant and raw. 

TALAITIK ATTACK

D.I.Y. CONSPIRACY VOL.2

 

Sometimes with the comps I don't know if it's better to just go: "here. it's a comp. the tracks generally fall into ____ genre. enjoy?" or if I should dissect the shit track by track. It's even harder with collections that aren't genre specific because the dissection can get really pedantic and I feel like I'm gonna lose you...and I don't want to lose you. So anyway....here's a compilation. I've posted a few of these Covid-era collections previously and I'm pleased to say that reaching for a 'new' volume still gives me those good shivvers because I know I'm about to bump a bunch of tracks I've never heard from bands Ive never heard of. This second volume is more about the catchy almost-garage shits, and listeners would be forgiven if they mentioned SOVIETTES and./or REATARDS when referring to bands like GULG BEACH and LA VASE, but then there are some rippers on the flip from GHETTO GOSPEL and SKARA and there are some primitive blackened punk/metal shits from UDDA so maybe there isn't any kind of theme at all. Maybe the intent was just to collect a bunch of good ass bands from all over this flat-ass planet and present them in one place for you to listen to. If so? Success.

DIY CONSPIRACY VOL.2

BLUE CHEER MIX TAPE

I ripped two ripping BLUE CHEER sets from 1968 last week, and there was some other shit on the tape that I liked even better. Honestly, one of the BC sets kinds sounded like shit but it's still BLUE CHEER from 1968 so it's worth it, you know? But it was still the other shit that got me all charged up, so here you go: EJERCICIOS ESPIRITUALES (probably '80s, probably Spanish, definitely rocking fuzzed lout garage punk with keyboards and wildly distinct vocals). MINT TATTOO was a BLUE CHEER offshoot I had never heard of but I'm not actively seeking their sole LP from 1969. Then there are four sweet ass '60s lite-psych numbers from a band I can't identify. Mix tapes rule, even and especially when they are accidents. 

BLUE CHEER MIX TAPE

LEPROPHILIAC

 

If you thought that 2022's Slimebath was the pinnacle of grimy churning death/grind, or if you think that the era of death metal bands composing sonic homages to the legacy of serial killers....please allow me to introduce you to Gein. First rate nasty shit, exactly what you'd expect of you've been following the Spanish duo LEPROPHILIAC since the Caskets Of Flesh demo five years ago.  It's anew week, and the new year has barely started....get ugly. 

GEIN

MONAGUILLOS SIN FRONTERAS

 

When it hits right.....it doesn't matter. Zaragosa's MONAGUILLOS SIN FRONTERAS hit right. A description of their sound would turn me off - slightly-too-slick, SIN DIOS by way of FUN PEOPLE with distinct SoCal '90s melodic punk overtones. But this tape is anthem after anthem and it all hits just right. 

ENTRE EL CERDO Y EL MONO

CROSTA

 

I feel like the CROSTA 12" gets lost (or got lost) in the deluge of killer records that dropped at the start of the last decade, but it is a record worth revisiting (or seeking out). This demo was released in 2011 (the LP came the following year) and is a perfect harbinger - sharp, no bullshit Spanish punk, rougher than the LP...but that's what you're supposed to get from a demo. "Discos Punk" on repeat.

CROSTA

LUX

 

I wonder if this album would have landed even harder had it been among the first wave of devastating Barcelona punk that dominated much of the early century. Their wild stomps fronted by flawless and piercing femme vocals are an instant addiction, and as much as I love the New Day EP on La Vida, this full length is a simply perfect document. A jumbled bouquet of dark punk, '80s UK anarcho and inventive modern Spanish hardcore that sounds like fucking LUX and like nothing else. 

LUX

BODYVEHICLE

 

I saw this on a shelf and....it spoke to me. There were other things on the self, but this one spoke to me. It presented well, which is part of the process of course (it's undeniable) but it also spoke to me and that is indefinable. Then I let BODYVEHICLE in...I had no idea. I let BODYVEHICLE in and I am consumed. These sounds, the amplified voices of crystals - once I hear them...it's not that I can't hear anything else, it's that I don't want to. And today, I won't. Today, these will be the sounds in my ears, and the thoughts in my head will be about how this tape, on that shelf, surrounded by all of those other tapes...this tape chose me, and I accepted.  

AMPLIFIED VOICES OF CRYSTALS

ANDRES SEGOVIA

 

If you want to hear some asshole write intelligently about Spanish classical guitar then you are absolutely on the wrong fukkn web page. But if you woke up this Sunday morning and felt like cracking open a cold ass beer and watching the sunrise (or the snow fall) while listening to some Spanish dude fukkn rip the steel rounds off his hollow body six string stallion then you could not be in a better place my friend. This dude died in the eighties, but you can still feel the power of his fingers while he slays Mozart and shit. You can still hear the passion pour from his soul while his eyes roll backwards in his skull during "Loyenda" and you can taste the savage salt of his tears while his guitar gently weeps on "El Testamento De Amelia" with no DBeat in sight. No throat searing vocals necessary. No one yelling "Go!" before the blasts. Just ANDRES motherfucking SEGOVIA; a Spanish dude whose appendages were at one with the motherfucking guitar. Cheers.

GUITAR

EYES OF CROW

 

Textbook raw DBeat - "A Guerra Continua" is one of the most perfect examples of the (sub)genre I've ever heard - a one chord riff into a three chord chorus, driven by blown out cardboard box drums and howling anguish. EYES OF CROW are so brutally simple that you feel like you've heard every song before, and it's that simplicity that makes this demo work. I was fukkn hungry for each track because I knew what was waiting for me, and then "Katastrofe" starts and the guitars are buried and it sounds so dark and ominous...like a door is closing. And then it's over. In less than ten minutes, my faith in ramshackle DBeat hardcore - a faith that has never wavered - has been strengthened by a seven year old cassette from Spain. Sometimes, punk works in mysterious ways, and sometimes it just hits you in the face.

OBSCURE D-BEAT 

MENDEKU DISKAK

 

Weird that a promotional Oi! sampler was one of my favorite releases of the year, but once you blast this fukkr you'll understand. Nine essential punk cuts from Basque Country, Spain, Mexico, Virginia, and England that will make your fukkn knuckles bleed. Shit, if this were a one song cassette with the opening track from BRUX on repeat it would make the essential list, so the rest is just gravy. So listen to SELF-INFLICT and ZIKIN and spend a few minutes thinking about what punk and the fine people responsible for Mendeku Diskak have given to you...now think about what you have to offer to punk.

PROMO KASETEA VOL.2

LAS TIMIDAS

 

It's an absolute crime that the five songs on Maqueta are all we get from LAS TIMIDAS. Bass, drums and keyboards with voices in constant harmony. They sound like the most brilliant ghost from an art punk after party that never was. They sound like the special "punk" guest group on an episode of Sesame Street. They sound...in a word: perfect. So I'll just keep listening to the same five songs for another ten years and I won't complain. 

MAQUETA

VÉRTIGO

VÉRTIGO's first release from 2014 is different in almost every way from yesterday's STINKHOLE post. Key word there is....almost. Punk is punk, and VÉRTIGO is catchy, addictive, forceful, masterful, innocent, confident...punk. File closer to LES THUGS and OBSERVERS than cacophonous shitnoise, but punk is still punk and quality can not be denied. 

VÉRTIGO 

ROTE ZORA

 

The sole release from ROTE ZORA is everything you could want from a frantic, anxious hardcore punk explosion. Blast after blast of erratic mania - just barely out of tune, mostly not quite in time, recorded in a cardboard box, guitar freaking out as much (or more) as it plays a riff. Fourteen minutes of marginally competent and fukkn brilliant total primitive snotty hardcore. "Represión." They're fukkn pissed, and you can feel it. 

ROTE ZORA

LEPROPHILIAC

 

LEPROPHILIAC started dropping bombs just a couple of years ago but have already amassed a formidable catalog filled with churning, putrid old school death metal. Their latest offering, Slimebath, feels like running through human sludge to escape the inevitable. In this case, that inevitability manifests in the form of a jaw dropping version of the NO MERCY/SUICIDAL opus "Waking The Dead" and after that track is finished....? Well, I'm dead.

SLIMEBATH
----------

Fun Fact: 

I received this dose in the mail a couple of weeks ago in trade for a NAKED AGGRESSION tape.  

Support always: LEPROPHILIAC

Support always: Rescued From Life

INTOLERANCE

 

The thing about the first INTOLERANCE demo is....it's the damn vocals. The hardcore is sharp and kinda awkward - a slurry of ripping '80s euroHC and DIY political 'core that took over the following decade, a precursor to the throwback backs that would emerge near the end of the century worshipping at the altars of HHH and INDIGESTI....too late for one trend and years ahead of another. But the fukkn vocals - that growl dominates this entire tape with a gruff and manic intensity that sounds like a series of commands - check the yell that opens "Mire A Tu Alrededor" then scrape your jaw off the floor when the rest of the song drops. The metallic hardcore is intense and the dated recording only puts my ears more on edge, but when they break into furious blasts (this is 1993 remember, and the DIY kids weren't really doing that yet...at least not on a large scale) INTOLERANCE is an absolute beast. There's an EP recording (tacked onto the end of this tape) and an LP that are pretty easy to come by - I think both might get skipped over because the cover art hasn't aged as well as the sounds - and then several other recordings that came out after they reformed in the 2000s....but where should you start? You should start right here: with a blistering critique of The Hate Generation. 

LA GENERACION DEL ODIO

POBLACIÓN SUPERFLUA

 

People of a certain age and with a certain background, when they hear "Spanish activist punk " and "1990s" they think of SIN DIOS. And that's fine. But if your thoughts stop there, then you're leaving a lot of fucking bands on the table...bands like POBLACIÓN SUPERFLUA. You can skip this shit if you want, but if you fuck with earnest, honest, real, DIY hardcore punk then whey the fuck aren't you fucking with this? 

DEMOS 95-97

SOLIDARIDAD CON VOZ Y RUIDO

 

I want more compilations. Region specific. Ideologically focused. Benefits comps. Killer bands on the same comp just because they are killer bands. Compilations curated by someone who wants other people to hear the bands that the curator likes. Compilations designed to give a voice to bands and/or issues that get overlooked. All of them. Solidaridad Con Voz y Ruido is some of many of the above - released in Puerto Rico around the turn of the century and reissued on cassette in Mexico shortly after, there are twenty three doses of femme focused hardcore punk from all over Europe and Central/South America. Melodic hardcore/punk, abrasive hardcore, raw punk, clenched fist protest punk, throw your arm around your comrade's shoulder and sing every word out loud punk...and it all means something. I want more compilations. 

SOLIDARIDAD CON VOZ Y RUIDO