Walle - ¿Qué obo? Darcowboy [2013]

Walle is an inspiring, baffling and emotional combination of various sounds both foreign and familiar that come together in impressive harmony, pulling from a plethora of musical stylings to realize a complex musical representation of the disorder, depression, banality, joy, spontaneity and absurdity of everyday life. Their ability to combine angular riffs, mathy rhythms and dischordant progressions with catchy lines, heavy jams and uplifting crescendos is not something I've heard much of before Walle.

One time when I was under the influence of something I said Walle is like running through a thick forest downhill, winding your way through the various life forms that all speak to you in different tongues as you pass until upon reaching the bottom you collapse and melt into the soil and become reincarnated as a mountain peak. Maybe its just the DL4, weird wailing vocals and explosive drumming but sometimes it just feels like the soundtrack to a hypnotic curse.

Somehow Walle has passed under everyone's noses for years and much of the world remains ignorant to their very progressive and surprisingly relatable soundscapes. They have toured parts of the US and Mexico a few times (they just finished a 4-week US tour) and last year headed down to South America to play in Perú, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

I imagine they'll continue to grow faster as they gain popularity, but perhaps their approach is far too free from typical rock structure and doesn't fit tidily into a certain genre or scene for folks that aren't already looking for this kind of music to begin with.

Anyway, ¿Qué obo? Darcowboy is their first LP and though it was released digitally in 2013, the official vinyl release didn't become available until some months ago, so now's your chance to pick up a record!

To buy the vinyl in the US, contact Dream Diver (website) or Ethospine Noise.
To buy the vinyl in México, contact Walle (facebook).


I realize I should have posted about them before their US tour so folks would go see them, so I'm sorry for that but I'm sure they'll be back soon. They play in SoCal from time to time or if you live nearby you can always hop into Tijuana for an evening when they play there.

Here's a cool review from the dudes in Zeta (from Venezuela/Colombia), who shared a number of tour dates with them in the US just a few weeks ago: Una de las más interesantes propuestas que tiene américa latina

Genres: old Screamo, Math Rock, Bolero, Punk, Post Rock, Classical, Shoegaze 

Walle - ¿Qué obo? Darcowboy [2013]

1.México 2 - Brasil 1

2. Yo Soy la causa

3. Ya no late, ya no oscila

4. Olvídalo, así comienza todo

5. ¿Qué obo? Darcowboy

6. Noise it up!

Walle - Vómito de Notas [2010]

I don't know why it took me so long to make a post on Walle. Maybe because Walle was the first Mexican band I ever really got into, and since then they have just been ubiquitous in my headspace and I go wrongfully assuming everybody knows about them. This is basically the worst logic ever because Walle is probably the most underrated band I've heard or seen in my life, and if there's any band that seriously needs to be paid attention to it's this one. These folks are from Tijuana, México.

In terms of bands seeking to push genres into something much more unusual or unheard previously, Walle is at the forefront. They have strong roots in punk and emo (members of Maladie, Satie and Growing Pains - all bands I will eventually post on and that you should check out), but with this project head much more into the math, shoegaze and 'experimental' realms. They have a really attractive interest in creating catchy riffs and then tearing them apart or ending them abruptly, or entering an environment that I might call psychedelic but is perhaps even more accurate to the strange emptiness and alien feeling one might experience while on drugs than the more commonly known music under the same name (the best part about this is they're straight edge).

If there's anything Walle captures really well it's the feelings of joy, humor and gratefulness that somehow sprout from an underlying pervasive sense of anxiety, loneliness and desperation. Vómito de Notas is like a giant mood swing, or a metaphor for an existential crisis. It's the moment when you realized everything sucks but life is still sick because we have each other. I recommend you listen to Mexico 2 - Francia 0.

One of the funny things of the album they like to quote other people and works, which actually works out quite well. I never thought dialogue from Tarkovsky's Stalker or quotations from the bible would sound so good next to experimental punk. Ok, maybe I did. Bukowski is basically ubiquitous if you like anything emo-related. The point is, delve into the lyrics on their bandcamp (if you read spanish), you won't be disappointed.

Genres: Punk, Math Rock, Experimental, Post Rock, Shoegaze

Walle - Vómito de Notas [2010]

1. Apocalipsis 6 - 15 (pm)

2. Tortis

3. México 2 - Francia 0

4. Utopía

5. Mientras Más Conozco A La Gente Más Quiero A Mi Perro

6. Stalker

7. The Worst And The Best