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To describe an album as "electronic music" has long been an understatement. "Romanticismo siempre" is a good example. Recorded mainly using synthesizers, the album travels a territory that borders on the experimental and the dancefloor, entering at times in both fields.

Andrés Téllez, Delone, states in its title a clear commitment: "an ode to life, to never lose that passion that is the engine that pushes everything, no matter how many obstacles there are along the way, such as love, madness or death". The need to express this is at the origin of the record.

His musical language is rich and varied. Among synthesizers, analog experimentation, drones and psychedelia, many of the subcultures that have shaped what was once called "electronic music" appear. Flashes of trip hop, new age and proto-electronics are amalgamated throughout the album, together with hints of mutant house, breakbeats, IDM and trance. Other genres peripheral to club sounds, such as post-rock or kraut, also appear.

The idea of creating something that could almost be considered a soundtrack is present, but Delone's singularity has taken the album down a different path, using his own musical vocabulary to articulate a narrative that leads him towards his desired destination, keeping experimentation and dance culture, constants in his career, very much in mind.

In 2014 and together with his partner and friend Carlos Trujillo, Andrés created Riverette, a record label that became a record store in the center of Madrid, with his studio in the basement. From there he unleashed his productions as Dos Attack and his first works as Delone. Riverette quickly became a key creative pole in the Spanish electronic underground, and the label has released records by Legowelt, Kornel Kovacs or HAAi.

Throughout the eleven tracks of "Romanticismo siempre", a story materializes in which the protagonism falls on the adrenaline of passion. Through a very personal sound, with a certain introspective vocation, Andrés tells us a wonderful tale with the help of exquisite arrangements and a rich expressiveness.

"Romanticismo siempre" is a polyhedral album that can change with every listen, with every track, and reinterpret itself almost with every playback. It is a complex record, delicate and full of nuances, at the same time charged with a powerful and primitive energy.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ascensión
2. Vangelo
3. Campos De Soria
4. La Débil
5. Invoca
6. MIT
7. Le Fou
8. Inés Mira Las Estrellas
9. Romanticismo Siempre
10. Celestina
11. Coma

Pajaro Sunrise

The Future Is Not What It Used To Be

Pajaro Sunrise has a new album and that is very good news."The Future Is Not What It Used To Be" presents a wonderful collection of songs that capture, almost unintentionally, the complexity of modern life.

Since his last album,"Man Of Many Faces", Yuri Méndez's days have been busy with five moves, a pandemic, several soundtracks and the surprise release of three singles in Spanish. And despite –or thanks to– the many unopened boxes, studio work, global emergencies and an unnecessarily large number of different rooms, out of those convulsive years emerged a luminous album that speaks lucidly of the passage of time, of truncated expectations that herald liberations and of growing old not as a drama, but as the long process of "learning not to worry and to love the bomb".

Throughout the album, irony shines through, as in 'Small Circus, So Many Clowns' or 'Parking Lot', while pop innocence sparkles in 'Devotion' or 'Hey Matisse'; combined also with Pajaro Sunrise's more somber moments, such as 'The Mute And The Blind', 'Shallow Waters' or 'Inhale', where Mendez's voice reaches a new degree of maturity without completely shedding the candor ofhisfirst albums.

Pajaro Sunrise is a rare specimen in Spanish independent music, a guy who treads his own path with a catalogue of exceptional songs and a diverse body of soundtrack work. He is a craftsman who has produced a flawless album which leaves room at times for traces of Mark Fisher and Ken Kesey, while other moments feature post-Lacanian puffy-cheek trumpet sounds.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Mute And The Blind
2. Small Circus, So Many Clowns
3. Devotion
4. Parking Lot
5. Hey Matisse
6. Not Hungry
7. Inhale
8. Lover Lover
9. The Real Top Of The Pops
10. Shallow Waters
11. Pointless
12. The Sweetest Thing

'Give Me The Strength To Be Me' is the exclusive single for Lovemonk by Soulnaturals, featuring London singer Chalibrann. This stunning track fuses all the power and beauty of gospel and soul music with exquisite arrangements that take Soulnaturals to spiritual heights, akin to contemporary artists such as Michael Kiwanuka and Sault.

Soulnaturals is the London-based project of songwriter, producer and band leader Tony Cannam, who collaborates with outstanding guest singers and musicians on high-quality soul/R&B music which has received rave reviews from Blues & Soul, Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show, Jazz FM, Andy Peebles at Smooth FM, Solar Radio, Clash Magazine and London Live TV, among others. Cannam is influenced by the rich heritage of 60s and 70s US soul/funk artists and arrangers such as Norman Whitfield, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones.

Soulnaturals released their debut album, "Love Says Yes!", in 2017 as part of Record Store Day, receiving strong critical acclaim and a nod as contender for album of the year from UK Vibe. Their second album, "Parlo Discoteca", came out in October 2023 on their own label, British Soul Standard.

TRACK LISTING

1. Give Me The Strength To Be Me (feat. Chalibrann)
2. Give Me The Strength To Be Me (Instrumental) [feat. Chalibrann]

Javier Jiménez Rolo surprises with Saint Malo, a project that explores the intersections of neoclassicism, folk, ambient and electronic textures.

That Saint-Malo is a town in Brittany is the least of it. Even the fact that it exists is unimportant. Javier has never been there. Similarly, his album takes us to remote or not so remote places without moving from where we are. Javier composed these twelve songs between 2019 and 2021 from his room: "One of the problems with recording at home rather than in a studio is that when you move, your recording space changes too. In the case of this album, I was involved in three moves during its whole process. Trying to see the positive side of this situation, I realised that, as well as a collection of songs, it was a testimonial to the different places where I had lived during those years and their respective views: 'Promenade' is an imagined walk from an interior flat; 'Picture In A Frame' is a sunny afternoon in a park in Ciudad Lineal, Madrid, and 'Bells Of Nowhere' is a stroll through the neighbourhood that was once my grandparents' and is now mine."

It's an eminently evocative album but also powerfully narrative, which moves through different emotional states. Along the way, references as heterogeneous as Javier's own tastes come up. From the inevitable Arvo Pärt, Max Richter and Steve Reich to the more unsuspected Thom Yorke, Burial, Caribou, Vulfpeck or even Dua Lipa. Stéphane Grappelli, Andrew Bird, Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds or Rene Aubry are other names Javier mentions when he talks about something similar to influences.

The journey, during which the songs miraculously fit with magical precision to the landscapes we are travelling through, begins with the promising 'Beware Of The Dogs' and 'Maltravieso'. It is followed by the obsessive arpeggios of 'Le Havre' that give way to the luminous 'Fields Of Gold', the emotion of 'Cais do Sodré' and the passionate 'Le pont roulant', reminiscent of a restrained Alexandre Desplat. Along the way, dogs will bark, rain will fall on the 'Promenade' and the sun will come out with the perfectly playful 'Dolce Far Niente' ("a mix between elevator music and a song announcing the arrival of summer" according to Javier) in which echoes of Isao Tomita and Raymond Scott resound.

The result of this captivating, unexpected and suggestive mixture is Saint Malo, Javier Jiménez's first album and the empirical demonstration that he does not have, despite his classical training, any red lines. "I've always flirted with jazz, with swing... Then I moved on to messing around with loops, to doing more ambient and experimental things. I also had my folkie phase with the klezmer group Barrunto Bellota Band..."

In Saint Malo the melodies grow, become small, return and intertwine with loops and improbable aromas, to form an album that describes a journey through emotions. From melancholy to joy and the surprise of first discoveries.

TRACK LISTING

1. Beware Of The Dogs
2. Maltravieso
3. Le Havre
4. Fields Of Gold
5. Cais Do Sodré
6. Long Chemin
7. Picture In A Frame
8. Sorrento
9. Dolce Far Niente
10. Le Pont Roulant
11. Promenade
12. Bells Of Nowhere

Shirley Davis & The Silverbacks

Keep On Keepin' On

Shirley Davis is centered, feet firmly planted and gazing right on into the future. The powerful soul singer takes no prisoners and holds no regrets on her third album, Keep On Keepin' On. As Shirley Davis & The Silverbacks, Davis harnesses the power of soul mothers past as well as her own history to deliver a record that rollicks from soul serenade to rocking ballad, then brings it on home with hard stepping soul.

Keep On Keepin' On embodies the best of the modern soul tradition, while showcasing a unique voice in its growing canon. Conjuring classic soul and funk sounds of the 1960s and '70s, as well as the mighty Sharon Jones – whose last words to Davis provide the album title -- Shirley Davis & The Silverbacks' latest is a highly personal tale of empowerment and self-realization, served up without losing an ounce of grooviness.

TRACK LISTING

1. Culture Or Vulture
2. Wild Girl
3. Keep On Keepin' On
4. Love Insane
5. It's All Right
6. True People
7. Outdoor
8. Stay Firm
9. So Much To Me
10. Take Out The Trash
11. Still Young


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