Nihilism About Love

A thinly veiled motive of lacking the sufficient time to do the necessary writing for posts means I'll bring you some new things that I've recently discovered instead, which is probably a good diversion and more in keeping with what this blog is about anyhow.

I can't remember either how I discovered Lorena Álvarez y su Banda Municipal (Spanish for Town Band ). But the thing is that I wasn't expecting it. In recent weeks, I've seen them live twice and this can only mean one thing: this outfit has fascinated me from the very first moment.

They weren't just there to play their songs one after another at breakneck speed and then get the hellout of there, which I've seen with a few bands lately, but there to have some fun themselves. A handful of small children from the audience even jumped on stage to dance and play some instruments with them. It was soooo funny... 

Lorena originally comes from Asturias, in Northern Spain, and she describes her songwriting as a way to reclaim the culture of that region without being archaic or obsolete. Only after listening to the first album, Anónimo, which opens with the sound of a flock of sheep, one realizes how bad it has been used so far the word 'bucolic' to refer to the music. Hehe.

The outfit poke fun at stories of traditions, animals, friendship and love (especially the latter) in sub-two-minute tracks at times humorous and satirical, at times lyrical, but always dazzling. I actually do identify myself with most of the lyrics. Damn, guys! It's a shame if you can't understand what exactly they are talking about. No worries though because the melodies are simply great, covering all types of Spanish folkloric music. Tambourines, guitars, bass drums, friction drums, empty bottles well suited for being transformed into percussion, swanee whistles, vessel flutes which imitate bird calls, castanets, rattles made of dozens of goat hooves, maracas and shakers are some of the instruments they use in their romances, pasodobles, jotas, muñeiras and sephardic songs.

Enjoy the band's rough cut, La Cinta, in their entirety and tell me your opinions below.