THE HUMAN ELEPHANT · Little Mosaic Worlds (001 SK 2008)
Pop songs with literary wit and sophistication, yes, there are at least two famous examples of this, both with large audiences following them… but if you ask me, they are bland pansy waists. That is not the case with John Edward Donald, whose views on life are far more poignant and therefore, darker. Even his prettier and most cheerful songs are more bitter than sweet; but, contrast is always at work, so, the blacker the despair, the brighter are the subtle hues of tenderness. Now, I don’t know the guy in person, but I reckon he is one fine conversationalist. What I can’t guess is, if he is a talkative person, or a stolid silent type (whichever, I’m certain he’s a stoic… or maybe a romantic). The guitar riff on “Ausland” suggests a quiet/intense character that truly thinks and chisels his phrases before opening his mouth. I must say, I’m amazed someone can make songs so personal so as to almost induce claustrophobia in the listener and yet craft them carefully into lovely, addictive and very moving musical portraits. Again, precision and economy are keys, if not, how could these songs feel austere and luscious at the same time? The ambivalent tightrope that the Human Elephant walked in Chicago Eighties Pop Karaoke is set even higher here, with the no-nonsense realism of the song-writing taken into heightened inner dimensions by the imaginative arrangements. John Edward Donald goes to the chore of things and does so with great class and a powerful sense of humor and pathos. And… his voice… that voice… is the coolest baritone since… nah, I’d rather not say it.(Review By Eduardo Padilla)
VOLAVERUNT · S/T (002 SK 2008)
Between the beginning and the end of things, space is the only constant, time goes to a second place only relevant to the romantic and used to esthetic illusionism specter. If its measured by the laws of popular music, on Volaverunt’s album you’ll find little time, only a few minutes I mean, what’s a fact is here its lots of space, real and imaginary, galactic and desert-like, nebulous and neat, all agreed in total asymmetry, as, I think, all things in this world should be. Too long for an EP, too short for an LP, the band’s debut submerges in a more human and unique side, its just a piece of music with no last names. If with Molloy & His Bike, Eduardo Padilla disguised as a John Fahey, who amnesiac forgot about landscapes to focus on roomscapes, in Volaverunt he rescues a certain claustrophobic essence playing from a point where the fourth cardinal points matches to wall 1, 2, 3 y 4. Here he seems to wear a white suit, let’s say, Loren MazzaCane Connor’s suit, particularly on tracks as “Die Trying”. If aridity is understood as a chronic emotional necrosis symptom and not as the lack of moist of land and air, then “L’Albatros” is arid in spirit, the chords seem indecisive, it sounds like a man’s face with teeth filled with dirt, spurting out a thick black jet of spit. “Dust Devil Soiree” sounds to me like Cocteau Twins playing from the total abandonment inside a leprosarium, in moments Vaka Lee’s vocal phrasing (between a nosey Liz Fraser and a Lexotan high Liz Bougastos), results to me exasperating, but that’s what music’s all about, it remind us about where we’re from and rises an illusory and romantic smile when it makes us think where we want to go. (Review By José Ángel Balmori)
TRASVORDER · La Tristeza Se Destruye (003 SK 2008)
One of the main motivations when it comes to creating music, Mariano Peccinetti says, its to make those moments of life, crucials for memory and to construct ourselves, to last and be evoked with sounds. But when you hit play to “ La Tristeza Se Destruye”, a little treasure box for songs –as souvenirs of good times-, it seems like all those recently taken photographs, still shining with color, were leaved under the sun to be disolved. Trasvorder runs in an openly pop way, he knows how to grab those catchy cyclic melodic flashes, wisely jumping over the shameless repetition to be perpetuated gently in our memory. If I had to reference his sound to a name, it will be, no doubt, Sean Lennon the one to cut up, only because they have the same sentimental ambition, the one you can feel in the transparent and melancholic pop they love to create. Once La Tristeza Se Destruye starts, there’s no other way: you’ll have to face the noon ride in the middle of woods wrestling between the rests of the drought and the start of a rainy summer. It will be impossible to avoid the pain of nostalgia without feeling warm and safe. All, made up subtlety on guitarrs, tons of detail and little recordings, keyboards and loops, in a chromatic scale from sepia to purple. Pop, just pop and memories. (Review By Claudia Sandoval)
MOLLOY AND HIS BIKE · Hit The Fractal Road (004 SK 2008)
To describe the new Molloy And His Bike album using only musical references would be as pointless as to talk about the ocean using the word blue. Genres like “ Americana ” or “Free Folk” would only fall like a cumbersome headstone over “Hit the Fractal Road ”. Here is Eduardo Padilla’s most personal album yet, also the most slippery when it comes to references, though Beckett is again invoked… in my opinion, it is also his first fully realized work. More Ry Cooder than ever, also more cinematic, Eduardo is the filmmaker with the invisible camera obsessed with finding every Pantone in the skies of Leon . This is expressed in songs like “The Old Clock Tower”, with a sound that once seemed a trademark of Town & Country, or the nervous pointillist nightmare of “Glen”. The music seems to have cut loose from the score, it seems to meander between a real geography and a fantastical one and in that impossible road it seems to balance for a moment to send us a postcard. Pay close attention to the sound of rotting wood produced by Leon ’s highways during summer, or “Camille came to Town”. The New Parallelogramers offer a curious version of this track, in the key of The Hair & Skin Trading Company, functioning as an odd counterpoint between the imaginary worlds of both projects. (Review By José Ángel Balmori)
THE PROCEDURE CLUB · S/T (005 SK 2008)
This nine songs, created consciously from the lo-fi threshold, pierces with secrecy and tiptoe, holding some kind of smile in between lines, through that nebular still at sight in the pop universe: the nebular some affirm is a Phill Spector creation. There, lightly dream-crispy distortions not yet cleared holds the Andrea Bellair’s voice, who interweaves phrasings that, more accurate, pretend to play between inconsistency and whispers. And while she goes through ponds of imprecise reflections, Adam Malec’s guitarrs and other sound sources outlines some sort of future memories, because from one song to another the oldschool sound (sixties pop, no doubt) changes from one to another that jumps to more experimental pop grounds, yet to be defined with a precise and cardinal word. Yes, everything here passed on without any filter, direct from the duo pulsations (both esthetic and practical) to sleezy manufactured recorders.This is how pop can be, elegant and awkward. Fun and a little out of focus. Or very out of it.(Review By Claudia Sandoval)
THE NEW DRUM · S/T (006 SK 2008)
In The New Drum , the tongue in cheek meets the heartfelt for a drink and wakes up with a wedding ring on its finger. Yes, on the one hand excellent song writing, on the other, often warped executions with an endearing out of tune quality and a mischievous smirk… perhaps half the brain is saying “I love thee” while the other half is making the left hand cross its fingers behind the back. “Clouds”: an idyll offset by a gnarly guitar lead; “I wonder”: a wistful love song twisted by a distorted and deranged vocalist, adding humor and creeping unease to the simple sentiment; “Staden”: a casiotone mash note haunted by crawling dissonance from beyond; “The Frog”: a flawless pop song with blue and black coloration, a bruised sound palette to add fiery tension to the otherwise straightforward sad/sweet delivery… and so on and so forth. Not so much a method or a style, nor a songwriting formula, The New Drum finds a way to be sincere and personal inside the candy wrapper cage of pop, while gently mocking itself in the act. So you see, you can burn your candle at both ends… you just need to know how to tilt it. (Review By Eduardo Padilla)
DALESSIO · Boyzz (001 SK C7S 2008)
Scribble Kite is proud to present “Boyzz”, the debut single by Dalessio. Without much in the way of make-up or tricky plug-ins, this is hard music for your feet. A piece of hot metal welded with hits of Detroit Techno, High Energy and post-industrial pastiche from a producer who bets on “back to basics” and goes under the premise “all begins in el estado de México”, exposed from early childhood to the most simple, coarse and vulgar brand of electronic music; the one made for the feet and not the head, for the neuro-dance is dead. Boyzz is a dance marathon stinking of armpit sweat and warm beer, recorded live on an improvised set in a small town north of Oaxaca, in a “debutant” party as a matter of fact.Dalessio speaks: “I like to play in those kinds of places, in Mexico people dance on their head, like a robot, doing caravans, drunk-assed, coked up, naked, but only in small towns… they dance without their shoes on”. Regarding the electronica scene in Mexico , Dalessio confesses:”I just don’t follow it, I have no clue, I come from a line of artists like Lupita D’alessio, who give it all on stage, a relentless whirlwind, that’s why I do it, yes, but also for the babes, you know, the little babies”. Boyzz is a dangerous one, a storm is about to break loose.
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Oh No Nuno! · Got Soul Go Fight (001 SK&UR)
With a flurry of hooks dense enough to fill a boxing ring and an arsenal of sweet and blissful electronics laid on top of fun and agile rhythms, Oh No Nuno’s Got Soul Go Fight twists and delights in a home-made quilt of unpredictable genre mixtures without ever sounding random or pointlessly clever. Crafty production and inventive song writing never get in the way of the finely tuned moods and feelings inside each track. A big heart sings at the core, some swell ideas fly around the treetops, and a sweeping warm wind animates every little lovingly made detail.