From my friend, the rather legendary Drem Bruinsma‘s project, BlindººCoyote manages to expertly weld together wild electronic music with a relaxed back beat, making the music adventurous but, ultimately, pleasant to listen to. From BlindººCoyote’s Bandcamp site: “This 33-piece album consists of a deep reflection on a period, albeit a difficult one, from Covid and Confinement to hospitals and surgery, from treatment and opiates, from chronic pain to hope and fear, from social isolation to remaining in touch with the outside world by being online. With this album ends a chapter, a period with a very demanding character. I hope…
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Hiemis are a project out of Spain, not exactly a mecca (yet) for dark ambient bands or dungeon synth, but this album is wonderfully bleak and enveloping. It has the feel of a lo-fi Spanish or Italian horror soundtrack, but with a lot of warmth to it. Eerie, of course, but accessible.
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Magnificent funk/soul/R&B/AOR-influenced vaporwave from Groove Paradise from Spain. We’ve featured the lads before, and they continue to produce, slick, polished, mellow grooves.
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From Vampi Soul’s Bandcamp site: “Elia y Elizabeth Fleta were two Colombian girls who recorded a handful of songs between 1972 and 1973, acompannied by Jimmy Salcedo and his group La Onda Tres, mixing soft-pop with a touch of tropical-pastoral funk, singer-songwriter sweetened by the subtle perfume of Caribbean music and psychedelia.” Charming, sunny music for a very cold Beijing day.
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Groove Paradise are a Spanish vaporwave band that sound like the smoothest of smooth jazz. “Rodrigo Cano” would have been a radio-friendly smash in the late 1980’s, when pastel clothing was the norm and life wasn’t so full of modern complications. The cover art looks like it should be for a remake of the soundtrack to the Italian classic Zombi, but nonetheless, the music steals the show.
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Esplendor Geométrico was Spain’s first major Industrial band. This album was recorded in 2002 while visiting Beijing, and has been out of print until recently. This latest edition adds four more tracks to this classic LP.
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Spanish record label Liquidator Music has just published a two-track 7-inch full of the most joyful ska I’ve heard in decades, courtesy of Italian ska legend Rude (performing here as Rudy Bolo), backed by a hammond-organ version as the B-side.
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Spain’s Munster Records has a legendary reputation for putting out some amazing garage rock albums, including a lot of prime reissues. This compilation covers some lost gems from the Venezuelan Discos MAG for your enjoyment.
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I have to admit ignorance to what is known as barber beats, a sub-genre of Vaporwave, but if Sinners Club and Groove Paradise out of Spain are an example of what can be done with the genre, I quite like it. The beats are infinitely more sophisticated than what you hear on most vaporwave releases (why most of these are given away for free), and the bass-heavy sound and relaxed groove makes for a chilled-out listening experience.
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Because I will be on the road for the next few days, I will have to prepare a couple of posts ahead of time until around Thursday or Friday, when I should be settled again in Beijing. In the meantime, practice your Spanish by listening to one of Spain’s coolest podcasts, La Montaña Rusa.