Temporada de tormentas - Del ruido y el espacio [2014]

Wow, so according to my music library I've been listening to this band since September but I definitely only rediscovered them until a few days ago. As I was cleaning out space on my ipod for new music I came across them and gave their most recent album a listen. I was unimpressed at first, the opening of the second song mostly just sounds like just another post-rocky emo band and I was just waiting for some trite screaming or at least some strained passionate yells. I was pleasantly surprised though when the vocals came through a bit more indie/pop or something of that nature (have you figured out yet that I'm not very genre-literate?). The vocals kinda push the music into a genre I haven't been exposed to much in Latin America, so hopefully by following these folks I can find some similar material. I wish I had gotten to see this band while I was living in Buenos Aires, but it just wasn't the scene I was most in touch with. They're from Haedo, which is a suburb of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Okay, so maybe their music isn't totally bizarre or fascinating or makes you ask a hundred questions (for that, see Insumisión), but their stuff is beautifully crafted, really nicely performed and well recorded, which quite frankly pushes them above most of the Argentinian bands I found during my short stay. My favorite is "El heroe de la plaza." Check out their work on their bandcamp (linked below) and a really nice video of them playing two songs off this record that I can't embed.

Genres: Rock, Indie, Punk, Post Rock

Temporada de tormentas - Del ruido y el espacio [2014]

1. Dolores Prats

2. Aterrizaje

3. Base secreta en moron sur

4. El heroe de la plaza

Ostende - Ciudades de Mimbre [2011]

Ostende is an emo-violence band from Buenos Aires, Argentina that takes influence from bands like Orchid and Ampere. There's a small, tight-knit group of folks playing screamo in Buenos Aires that make/made up bands such as Federico Luppi, Arde Hollywood, Bahía and Beatrice Kaleth. This is one of the more established long-term bands of the group, though they've gone through a few lineup changes they keep pushing forward and playing the good stuff. It's pretty shreiky and a little rough around the edges, but it'll hook you good.

Genres: Emo-violence, Screamo

Ostende - Ciudades de Mimbre [2011]

1. Ser Conciente No Te Hace Inocente

2. Seguimos Siendo Ciegos

3. Sie Esta En Tus Brazos, No Lo Creo

4. Malformaciones De Una Reelección

5. Cuantos Chicos, Tantos Chicos...

6. Los Convencidos Caminamos Por La Vereda De Enfrente

7. Palabras, Palabritas (A Los Conservadores)

8. La Gran Pregunta Es Una Respuesta (Tomo I)

9. Greg Ginn Vs Tommy Dunster

10. Un Rio Menos

11. La Suma Es La Resta De La Conciencia

Also, the background of this blog is a photo I took of Ostende playing in Buenos Aires :^)

Zat/Avitación 101 Split [2011]

Bazinga, I'm back in the U.S. and for real this time I'm gonna be posting consistently again. This one's a twofer I guess, it's a split between two radical Latin American screamo bands that's sure to rock yer socks off.

Avitación 101 is from Uruguay (I assume Montevideo but I haven't found anything that actually says) and define themselves on their facebook as neoscreamocrust, which is definitely accurate as heck. Bass heavy, driving and riffy is how I'd describe it. The first riff of every song is always so damn catchy. The vocals stand out quite a bit, they seem to have a nice mix of sass, screamo and hardcore influence. It's one of my biggest regrets that I didn't go see this band when they played in Buenos Aires while I was there.

Genres: Screamo, Crust, Hardcore

Zat is from Buenos Aires, Argentina and plays a sort of punk/screamo. The guitars are a bit angular and can even get reminiscent of Fugazi in their discordance and the way they play off each other. For the most part they walk with a sort of dark, catchy melody that can be a little off-putting or make you ask where they were going with it, and it's like chunky and doesn't necesarily make sense and it comes off pretty well actually. Like, pretty stripped down, but not 3 chord punk but somewhat reminscent of it.

Genres: Punk, Screamo, Post-hardcore

Zat/Avitación 101 Split [2011]

Zat

1. Levanta tus palmas y sacude tus balas

2. Sabor a Troya

3. Bosques

4. Arma calibrada

5. Charlas, descontentos, universos

6. Tribunales

7. Camino al juzgado

8. Estallido

Avitación 101

9. Intro 

10. Iglesias

11. Oxido

12. Pesadilla

13. Tengo miedo

14. Trazada

http://institucionzat.wordpress.com/

https://loszats.bandcamp.com/
https://myspace.com/havitacion101

Vocero - Vocero [2001]

I've been quiet for a while, I'm sorry ya'll. Posts are gonna continue to be spotty until I get back to the states in a couple weeks and things are less chaotic. To make it up to you though, today I'm featuring one of the most, if not the most radical emo band from South America - Vocero.

They only ever released one album, a short 15 minutes of innovative emo that takes influence from other bands of the era like Braid and Falling Forward. It has a danceability and an unpredictability that I would also liken to Fugazi in some senses. To me, the most exciting aspect of the band is the vocals. The main vocals at times are like raw punk but slightly refined and placed in an emo context, and at other times are a more predictable raw melody that you find in emo. Meanwhile the backing vocals are generally more melodical but less predictable and kinda surreal in timbre.

Please enjoy the crap out of this band, it's pretty hard to find any information on them but theres a few things posted on a facebook page that was created for them and a review translated into spanish from a Bulgarian blog that actually has a lot of sweet information on other Argentine bands as well (that I have posted and not posted about).

Genres: Emo, Post-hardcore, Punk

Vocero - Vocero [2001]

1) Track 1

2) Track 2

3) Track 3

4) Track 4

5) Track 5

6) Track 6

7) Track 7

Fun fact: One of the members plays Tango on the accordion

Hungría - Fjóplavi [2014]

Do you like math rock? J-rock? Super fricking precise guitar-drum riffage? If so, listen to this. If not, listen anyway, because possibly the most impressive shit out of Buenos Aires I've heard yet (except maybe Vocero, who I have yet to do a post on). Basically, if you want an idea of what it's gonna sound like, just look at the album cover, because it's probably gonna make you think about space or the future. It's actually kinda bewildering that this band is from Buenos Aires, as they sound absolutely nothing like any other band I've heard here and trust me this style of music is not popular, even in the "scene."

It's extremely japanese in tone and rhythm, like if you think of the clean guitar tone in mudy on the Sakuban or tricot. I guess you could call it experimental too, as its got some really chill structurelessness and low-key strange tones. So, get ready for some radical space laser sounds and sick flangers. The band is only a two piece so there are some sweet loops used nicely that bring out dynamics and show off the guitarist, not to mention that the drums are impeccable. Two-pieces generally need to be pretty tight and this band is very much so. Anyways I've again found myself amongst a genre I don't know how to talk about so I'm gonna let the music do the rest of the talking.

Genres: Math Rock, Experimental, I don't even know

Hungría - Fjóplavi [2014]

1. Noventa y siete por ciento.

2. Reykjavik.

3. La trilogía de Andy Carroll I.

4. Úthafskarfa.

5. La trilogía de Andy Carroll II.

6. Los nórdicos.

Asilo - Comunión [2014]

When you play this, get in the mood for some noisy heavy shit that gets a little cheesy sometimes but damn, it's worth it. I found it sounds especially devastating on a rainy day on some old speakers (subwoofer necessary fersher) in a friend's apartment in Caballito, Buenos Aires. The distorted bass seems to sort of create a ripping sensation while the noise envelopes, supported by some furious vocals and, though simple, very solid drumming. The riffs just seem to drive and drive on, not in the same sense that a band like Bongripper will hang on the same riff and you just lose yourself in it, but more in the sense that if you don't keep playing over and over again and pushing forward you're going to suffer from some bizarre disease and whither away and die. In other words, it's a little more anxious than your typical sludge/crust/doom/stoner/whatever record and the noise makes it feel like a science fiction film.

For me, this is one of the best developed sludge records I've heard yet. The piano interludes with spacey ambient sound in the background gets me every fucking time, and it functions with the exact intentions you expect - the heavy parts are just crushing after you hear those pretty scores. I could do without the sound bytes though. Asilo is from Buenos Aires, Argentina and their release for their latest tape is in a week - I'll be picking up more than one, because this band needs some exposure outside it's native country.

Genres: Sludge, Doom, Noise, Crust

(the video doesn't do it justice, listen to the album on bandcamp)

Asilo - Comunión [2014]

1. Geografías

2. Pichiciega Fe

3. (epidemia mundial de desencanto)

4. La Paciencia del Cuchillo

5. Arquitectura del Silencio

6. (anti voz)

7. Dinámica del Cambio

8. Miedo y Curiosidad

9. (no a la vida)

10. La Ultima Voluntad

La Última Canción del Mundo - 2007 [2007]

Screamo fans, this is your dulce de leche. In reality, there's not an incredible amount of screamo in Latin America, especially in Argentina, but there are definitely some gems to be found. This group from Rosario, Argentina is one of them. Okay, so they have all the cliche screamo requirements - clean guitars with delay break up the heavier chaos, multiple vocalists pour out their feelings into microphones, everything is recorded imperfectly, etc. However, there are some keys to this band that really make it stand out. The most notable is the tasteful use of a melodic/clean voice and screaming voice at the same time, in a way that reminds me of The Kodan Armada or Alexisonfire's first album. The other thing is they take advantage of a great vocalist and slow things down while she sings, so her performance really stands out. These calmer moments tend to be little less anxious than most screamo - City of Caterpillar for instance always has the sense of impending breakout, the slow build up to explosion - making the experience slightly stranger and showing influence from Argentine rock.

I don't know how this album was recorded, but given the different recording qualities and how the female vocalist doesn't appear until halfway through, it seems it was done in multiple sessions over a long period of time and the album serves more like a combination of recordings than a single, complete piece.

They have another album that came out in 2011 and are on a noteworthy compilation with Chilean and other Argentine bands that I'll post about later. I'm also going to go see them play in two days so I'll try to take some photos/video and include them in a later post.

Genres: Screamo, Emo

La Última Canción del Mundo - 2007 [2007]

1. hoy mis manos ardieron

2. tu palabra y mi razón

3. marionetas

4. esperando el momento

5. el juego

6. juancito

7. run

8. silencio

9. ignorantes corazones (nada que decir)

10. dulce tan dulce

11. fin

12. el lamento

13. la última canción del mundo

PYRAMIDES - EP [2014]

Pyramides is a really anxious and driving post-punk band from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Despite the constant sense of my guts rising up my throat when I listen to them, they are still a fairly chill sound and something I'd put on while falling asleep or reading. Essentially they sound like a day spent walking around in the rain refusing to interact with other people and contemplating the precarious relationship between your body and the overwhelmingly inorganic concrete structure of a city you exist within and even stretch as far as to call home. Fans of Morrissey or New Order would probably get down with this.

Genres: Post-punk, New Wave

PYRAMIDES - EP [2014]

1. Nada Cambia

2. Poco Proporcional

3. Lluvia

4. Pelicula Francesa

5. No emitas Sonido

6. Contraluz

7. Afuera

8. Intactas

9. Deberias matarlo

10. Las Coordenadas

11. Hermano

12. Invisible

Lxs Jugadxs - Demo [2013]

Lxs Jugadxs is one of the fastest bands I've seen play live, they are brew brew bruuutal. No matter how fun they are to watch live (the drummer is a fricking superhero), their recorded material is just as good. I found this band through a facebook invitation to a show in Buenos Aires before I arrived. Fortunately, I got to see them just a week ago, so they are at the top of my mind right now. They hail from La Plata, a small city just south of Buenos Aires that contains a really solid amount of good bands and great people considering how boring the town is. This is their first demo, delivering 5 minutes of absolute heck.

Genres: Grind, Powerviolence, Blast

Lxs Jugadxs - Demo 2013

1. Imperio

2. El manija

3. Negro

4. Eden

5. Mercvrio