Jaime Casas

Jaime Casas es periodista y promotor cultural. Ha trabajado como responsable de la edición digital del diario ADN y ha colaborado en medios como Cultura/s de La Vanguardia, Rockdelux, El Mundo, Rolling Stone, La Luna, Eldiario.es, aB, Diario Metro, Playboy, Vanidad y Primera Línea, entre muchos otros. Colabora con el CCCB y otros centros de producción cultural. En Twitter es @JaimeCasasB

Montgomery Clift is not an actor

February 7th, 2014 No Comments

Seville-born Miguel Marín is a veteran of high-risk music. His CV includes names like Sr. Chinarro, Piano Magic and Arbol, plus his current project of contemplative electronic music, halfway between sound art and open experimentation. Determined to make a radical change, he is striking out on the path of art rock, full of pitfalls and perils. As a collaborative project, in Montgomery he’s joined by Gaby Vargas (guitar and latest member to join the ranks of Arbol), Miriam Blanch (bass and vocals, known on the nineties indie scene as member and co-founder of Seville band Explosivos Acme and currently director of the Intramuros sound art festival) and Amanda Palma (drums and vocals, also part of projects like Norris B and Katapulto).

We talked to Miguel about this new project, which he’ll be presenting at Emergència!

How did the project come about, and why?

Montgomeryis something I’ve been nurturing for two or three years. I wanted to throw off the melancholy and pressure that sometimes get to me with Arbol, where I decide everything. I wanted to form a band where everyone had a say, and it had to beMontgomery.

After being involved in countless projects, Montgomery is a more expressionistic, perilous territory. What do you want this new project to say?

More than saying something, I really wanted to make music with friends where everyone put in their ideas. We try not to impose limits. We mix acoustic instruments with production and electronic arrangements. It’s everyone’s project.

There’s a contained tension in all of the songs. It’s a kind of cross between Cosey Fanni Tutti and Julian Cope, to mention just two names. Would you agree that tension and atmosphere are the basic features?

Maybe; I’m a big fan of 4AD and Throbbing Gristle. There’s all kinds of influences in the band, we listen to a lot of subliminal jazz. Miriam, our bass player, mixes electronic music and is really into experimental music and field recordings. We all sing and we shake down well together. We like using 303 sound and mixing it with distorted guitar. We try to leave space and create tension, but with warm tones.

Listen to Montgomery here.

Are you an experimental group?

You could say we experiment with mixing styles and sounds. You end up hearing the influences, I guess. We sing in English because I lived in theUK for years, I still visit a lot and you could say it’s my second language. We also do instrumentals.

“Montgomery imbibed the Motown sound, absorbed major black Caribbean influences and, on his constant visits to the grooviest venues in New Orleans, incorporated jazz, before discovering and appropriating afrobeat and Irish folk.” What is this novelistic profile packed with snippets of pop culture? Tell me something about this amalgam of names and ideas.

[Laughter] There’s a dance spectacle by the Teresa Navarrete company, who I’ve worked with for years, where we’ve invented a character calledMontgomery, and that’s me. I perform some ofMontgomery’s music live in the show, but solo, in a barer version. This description comes from the press dossier of the show, which is called “Salón Otto” and came out last December.

How much of this project is you?

I set up the project with ideas I’d been working on at odd moments in hotels, airports, and so on. But always with the idea of forming a band and playing live. What I want is to play with people, and for these people to have the same importance as me in the group; I don’t want people to say this is the new project by Arbol’s Marin, though I suppose it’s inevitable.

Are you fans of Montgomery Clift? Why the name?

We are fans of Montgomery Clift, I always remember my mum watching those films. The name really came from Teresa Navarrete, the dancer/choreographer I work with. One day over dinner at her house, we were brainstorming and she came up with this name.

What are Montgomery like live?

A liveMontgomerygig is drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, percussion and vocals, electronic music with a solid base. Really dynamic and intense with lots of nuances.

I listen to your music and think of the title of a book by Servando Rocha, Nada es verdad, todo está permitido [Nothing is true, everything is allowed]. In music, there are no truths and everything is allowed.

That’s our aim—as far as we’re concerned, everything is allowed. We’ve got some really varied songs; it would bore me to play three songs in a row with verse, chorus and back to verse, four As and then four times C-D. We like loops, repetitions and not much structure. The group is Amanda (drums and vocals), Miriam (bass and vocals), Jesús Guitarra (keyboards and vocals), Gaby—who can’t make it for this concert—(guitar and electronics) and me (vocals and electronics). We’re just starting to play together. I think we’ve got a long road ahead of us and I’m intrigued to see what we come up with.

 Will Arbol carry on as always?

Arbol is at full throttle with concerts planned and a new disc in the pipeline. But right now, I’m busy with a film soundtrack, I’ve recently finished a documentary and I’m working with several dance companies. WithMontgomery, we’re in the recording studio to bring out a disc this year, and we’ve got loads of practices.

@JaimeCasasB

 

Montgomerywill be playing on the Foyer stage on 15 February at the sixth and latest Emergència! festival.

Gente Joven: young people, modern people

February 3rd, 2014 No Comments

Like it or not, we’re all modern. And logically, though some people have never acted it, we’ve all been young at some point. Young people in the seventies longed to be up on the stage of Gente Joven, the programme broadcast by the only TV channel, dictated by circumstance. Today, young—and not so young—people are discovering that the music of Gente Joven retrieves the bygone sounds of Spanish lower-case pop. Under a mantle of languor and somnambulism, between early Sr. Chinarro, The Cure and Donosti Sound—including Vainica Doble—the three-piece band comprising Patricia Magadán, Pablo Álvarez and Fernando de la Flor debuts with their Roman-lettered disc (I, II, III y IV, Discos de Kirlian, 13) and minimum aspirations.

They’ll be presenting their set on 15 February on the Emergència! stage. We talked to Fernando de la Flor, the group’s ideologue with a long career on the Spanish indie pop scene.

An easy one to start: how and why did you form the group?

It started in the summer of 2013. I’ve played with other bands and I’ve always had my own projects on the boil. The difference this time is the incorporation of the voice of Patricia (Madagán). We sing together in almost all the songs. Pablo (Álvarez) later joined the project to form our current line-up.

Why did you choose a name that goes back to that whole authentic movement?

Firstly, “Gente Joven” is the TVE music programme we used to watch when I was a kid. Then there’s the concept of “Gente Joven” as a nostalgic and even decadent idea. Most of the retired people I know—and it’s a growing group—are more nostalgic about those days than about their childhood.

I see you’ve been identified with dream pop, with a kind of sleepiness, because of the way you sing. Would I be wrong to say that you go more by sensations than by labels?

 

The music we make doesn’t set out to emulate any particular style, but dream pop is a name that goes very well with what we want to express. The night-time mood, whispering voices and crypticism of some of the lyrics aim more at discretion, or stealth. I’d say we walk the line between keeping a low profile and not being invisible, if that’s an idea you can relate to music.

What stories do you set out to tell with your songs? What are they about? 

The sensations conveyed by the songs can be seen as melancholic or sad, without going as far as depression or anxiety. Heartbreak is a theme running through our debut cd I, II, III y IV (Discos de Kirlian, 2013). There’s also a touch of the mysterious and the inexplicable behind some of the more abstract, obscure songs.

The songs have a strong visual power. Your ideas have a striking visual content. Perhaps the images I see are like the “early lights with a blinding impact” you talk about in one of your songs. How do you go about creating these ideas that take visual form?

We like to focus on images or on the visual nature of a situation or scene. I don’t feel very comfortable with the confessional style. I shun the explicit, I prefer to take a roundabout approach and then hit home with a line or an expression that give a touch of reality to the song to avoid getting too surrealistic.

I think your influences explain your music. Not completely, but they are really illustrative. Can you name five of these names that contribute to the essence of Gente Joven?

Sr Chinarro – “NH3 Light”

The influence on our music of the more “abstract” period of Sr Chinarro is obvious. I love that mix of rather sad melodies and texts, run through with references from that time. I chose this video because the racing cars and the adverts on the racetrack represent Gente Joven’s idea of melancholy.

The New Year – “Disease”

The New Year/Bedhead are an example of what I was saying before about being discreet but up there. The Kadane brothers have exquisite taste when it comes to writing exciting songs without being heavy or pretentious. And Chris Brokaw on drums. What more could you ask for?

Wild Nothing – “Full Performance”

Wild Nothing is one of the current dream pop groups I like best. I saw this video at Pablo’s after a long night of beers and cider in Xixón—a live half-hour gig where they play their singles and best songs. If I ever form a band with a drummer, bass player and keyboards, I’d like us to sound like this.

Burial – “Stolen dog”

Squalid rhythms, endless echoes, melancholy, night time and cold. These are all important elements in the music we make and Burial puts them together like no one else. If you lose your dog or someone steals it, the sensation must be a bit like what this song conveys.

Galaxie 500 - “Temperature’s rising”

You don’t have to be a virtuoso to write great songs or sing like a nightingale to move people. Galaxie 500 are a good example of this. One of my favourite trios.

http://youtu.be/BvlgOsD6MuI

The Cure – “High”

Disintegration and Wish are two of the discs I’ve listened to most in my life. The Cure have always been an influence, my sister used to play them all the time. For me, this video is another mark of their sense of humour that belies the group’s labels of “dark” or “Gothic”. Images of Robert Smith being swallowed by a giant spider or hanging onto a kite are hilarious. It’s vital not to take yourself too seriously.

@JaimeCasasB

 

Gente Joven present their first disc “I, II, III y IV” on the Auditorium stage of the CCCB at the sixth Emergència! festival.

Kíar, a secret world

January 30th, 2014 No Comments

She’s 18 with just two songs on the Internet. She produces, sings and writes. Her name is Kíar, which is the way she presents herself to the public. She’s giving nothing away about her real identity. “Kíar is my artistic name,” she told me via email. “And since we’re dealing with art, with the public, I prefer to use this name. Because my real name is only for my personal life.”

Kíar is without a doubt one of the big surprises at this year’s Emergència! A highly personal and strangely familiar voice that is reminiscent of the best in singer-songwriters who skirt the limelight of mass success. Her music, like adolescent musings, of J. D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, for example, is about that moment when everything is possible and everything still lies ahead. Nothing sounds false, everything makes sense.

How come you’ve started to make such “adult” music at such a young age? It’s surprising in many ways, particularly the fact that it’s already so well defined. Tell me a bit about your history in music, which has been short but fruitful.

Music has always been in me. I started quite a while ago, when I was about eight. At the time, I lived in a valley, surrounded by trees. That was when I felt the need to ask for a piano so I could play the melodies that were forming in my head. Basically, I suppose I wanted to express the sensations I was receiving from my surroundings. So, time passed, and I just kept composing. But no-one except my mother knew about my work. Inside, I could feel sensations, emotions and feelings that I wanted to transform into language.

I suppose that in the end creation becomes a desire to share.

Listen to the music of Kíar here.

On the internet I read a comment about your work, saying it’s “the song of the wind among the flora in the beech wood of En Jordà”. Poetically, that’s fair enough, but it’s not very tangible. I find it hard to grasp the idea that your music has a direct relation with where you’re from—in your case, La Garrotxa. Your music sounds very English; how are you influenced artistically by the fact that you’re from La Garrotxa, which is not exactly known for music? If it has influenced you, of course…

It has, yes; surroundings are very important. And La Garrotxa is a very beautiful place, though it’s not where I’m originally from. I went to live there with my parents when I was three, in a very remote, idyllic spot. But I think it’s not just places, it’s people, too, with the way they see life, who experience and feel things. And so on.

One of your two songs, Mama’s blood, tells a dramatic story. It sounds like you’re talking about domestic violence. Is it about something that happened in your life? Where do you get your inspiration?

It’s generally feelings and emotions that inspire me. This song, Mama’s Blood, is one of those moments that reflects an instant in my life, when I couldn’t contain myself and used music to express that sensation.

When can we expect a disc? What are your plans?

In terms of plans, my ambition is to present my project abroad. I’ve always felt drawn to far-off places. That’s always been my aim.

For the moment, here I am, I’m thrilled at the proposal of Sergio, the director of the Emergència! 2014 festival and the chance to show a little part of my work. My plans include doing lots of concerts, if the opportunity and the right moment arise. And, most of all, making myself known.

You call your style “experimental sci-fi folk”. To what extent do you think it’s experimental? And what does the reference to science fiction mean?

I identify with the label “experimental sci-fi folk”, though I also have to say I’m not that comfortable with labels in general, for me or for anyone, in any field. It might seem like definite label, because it was written in the biography I had on a website somewhere, but it’s by no means official. It’s an early label someone came up with to give an idea of my musical genre. But as I say, I don’t like labels because they limit you, they stop you moving, and that takes away all your freedom.

Perhaps the “experimental” part refers to songs I haven’t released yet, but also to Alien Love, which is posted on YouTube.

I absolutely love science fiction. I’m a real fan of sci-fi films and Asimov’s novels. When I create, whether it’s lyrics, melodies or sounds, I visualize places in other worlds, extraterrestrial ones… I’m also really interested in the world of robotics. And, most of all, the universe. That’s where I get my inspiration.

I like that faltering style of your phrasing when you sing, it doesn’t sound at all forced. Why do you choose to sing like that?

As I just said, I really love everything to do with the world of science fiction. The universe, the planets and the beings that could inhabit them… So, when I imagine a way of talking and singing, that’s what comes from inside, when I’m inside the worlds I’ve imagined, or not…

What are your influences? You sing and perform with a style that reminds me very much of well-known female singer-songwriters …

My mum is a real music lover, and I suppose having so much different music around me all the time has made its mark, perhaps even when she was carrying me. More than influences, I could give you a list of a few of the ones I grew up with (because the list would be very long and varied): Richard Manfyed, Michael Jarre, Moby, Klaus Schulze, Kitaro, Muse, Placebo…

I should also say that I haven’t yet presented most of my songs, but I think they’ll probably give more clues as to my influences or any similarities with other musicians. What I do is simply create what I feel at a given moment and, well, I’ve never really thought about it. You should always find your own way, not copy other people. Everyone has their own path, and we have to respect that. In the same way that everyone is free to express their opinion, and that’s something I believe very strongly in.

 @JaimeCasasB

The hidden history of Escarlata

January 22nd, 2014 No Comments

Part three of the presentation of Emergència! 2014 introduces newcomers Escarlata, a collaborative experiment that takes the high road of non-conformist poetic pop previously trodden by Randy Newman, High Llamas, Robert Wyatt and Dennis Wilson.

They present Lo que me dijiste al oído se extendió por todo el mundo (Fohen, 13), one of those works that skirts the edges of today’s mercurial alternative music scene. It’s still so little known that it’s barely been heard beyond the inner circles, which are full of praise for the scope and significance of the project.

Escarlata are Remate and Israel Marco. Escarlata is the product of a spontaneous, enthusiastic coming together. Escarlata combines the talent of these two musicians with years of experience on the national scene. Madrid’s Remate, with ten albums to his name, has a vibrant personality that eludes all labels. In 2014, he also makes his debut as a writer with the publication of Suelo estar, a book inspired by one of the songs on Una araña a punto de comerse a una mosca. Israel Marco, a regular at Emergència!, has a huge and very distinctive artistic talent that he divides between various projects: Cuchillo, Caballo and Viva. He is a fine intuitive guitarist, a musician to watch when he gets up on stage: every chord, every arpeggio he plays, has something to say, and it’s often a story that exceeds the audience’s expectations.

Together, and almost without meaning to, they’ve pieced together a discourse that’s crystallized in the outline of a world halfway between dream pop and reflection. Strange but alluring. To the point and eloquent. Instrumentally complex and laborious, packed with sharp details that anticipate the next step in the narrative. Their songs tell minimum stories about lyrical, cinematographic atmospheres. They move as slowly as they can in the task of laying before us their loves and hates; the inexplicit influences of a music that is as imaginative as it is sophisticated.

Of the various projects you’re both involved in, how and why did this collaboration come about? 

Initially it was Carlos Toronado who “introduced” us. He’d known me well for about ten years and just after recording Cuchillo, he thought we’d complement each other, because we were and are very different, but ethically and aesthetically we share a similar idea of music. Not necessarily in the form the music takes, but in the way we go about it. It’s a question of attitude and professionalism, I think. He thought that each would bring out the best in the other, which he saw as my lyrics and harmonies, and his overview and attention to detail. So, that was the start.

 What is it about Escarlata that makes you click so naturally? How did you manage to make it all fit so well?

I hope you’re right! I feel really good about what we’ve done. We’ve always been open to a third element, not just the sum of Remate and Cuchillo. Very much relying on “inspiration”, a “still life” of songs, on an unexpected happening that made us ditch the script. That’s why we went and worked in the studio without clear objectives, with the only clear idea of coming up with something stimulating.

What are the defining characteristics of Escarlata? Fragile voices and poetic atmospheres?

That’s not something we thought about beforehand, except an Escarlata light. A Lynchian light, but not necessarily that fetishistic, just trying to take this light to other landscapes. I would say yes, it’s dream-like and feverish, but we’re talking hay fever. A bit theatrical, but in cinema form. I don’t know, I hope it’s not THAT intellectual, because it was all very instinctive.

I’d also mention this capacity to slip in some humour and reflection into that dreamlike quality that runs through the disc. What are the songs about? There are references to sport, illness, love, and so on. It’s a very eclectic thematic universe.

I think the songs deal with things that seem odd, but they don’t happen oddly, nor are they that unusual, I mean there’s nothing circus-freaky about them. They’re about the way life can be odd, and if we pick out these odd moments it’s so that we can laugh at everything, at these moments and at the ones that aren’t odd. It’s all a convention. It’s all a role we’re playing. I mean, everyone. The mechanic, the cyclist, me.

There’s a lingering air of the cinema. Is film an influence in Escarlata?

Yes. Directors like David Lynch, Alexander Payne, etc.

Escarlata Fiesta

More than musicians, the two members of the duo are music lovers. Remate picked five songs by other groups that form the duo’s musical DNA. “A cocktail with these ingredients is real ESCARLATA”, he says.

Robert Wyatt Sea song

The Glove (Steven Severin & Robert Smith) Punish Me With Kisses

John Cale & Brian Eno Spinning Away

Carpenters Superstar

The Beach Boys & Annette Funicello The Monkey’s Uncle

@JaimeCasasB

Escarlata will be presenting Lo que me dijiste al oído se extendió por todo el mundo on the Auditorium stage at E!2014.

Cuello: urgently emergent

January 16th, 2014 No Comments

Instalment two in a series of eight profiles about the artistic remit of Emergència 2014. Cuello, the band of José Guerrero, fromValencia, is emerging as one of the liveliest proposals in the festival’s line-up since it started. Clear, simple and direct is what people are saying; uncomplicated. Rampantly melodic with irrepressible energy.

They debuted with a fantastic album, Mi Brazo Que te Sobre (BCore), marked by a lyrical feel that boldly suggests the ideas that come together in the muscle of a pulsing rock concert. This is one project more of the many that make up the alternative scene today inValencia, a hotbed of creativity and new ideas. José Guerrero explains who Cuello are and what they do.

© Josu Kiro

 

Between the powerful abstraction of Betunizer and the rhythmic essence of Jupiter Lion, how did Cuello come into being, and why? It seems like a more laidback, spontaneous project than the other groups you play with…

For a while I’d been thinking about getting together a band where the melodies were more important than innovation, experimentation, things like that. Like you say, something more laidback and spontaneous, to start with at least. Perhaps even something closer to pop, but guitar-based and energetic. One day I started writing songs and formed the band with what I thought were the right people—musicians like me who in theory are not at all poppy, bringing our own approach to the songs. Rather than trying to explain something with Cuello, what I wanted was to enjoy playing this kind of songs, like I do with other bands and projects I’m involved in.

Is this raw, grandiloquent side of Cuello intended?

What we intended was to produce songs with energy, in every case positive energy. They have to have this energy to form part of our repertoire. Rather than grandiloquent, I’d say “grandipotent”.

We hear a huge range of influences: American rock like Hüsker Dü or Guided by Voices, nineties hardcore, and even some more commercial influences. Basically, alternative music that just won’t stop. How would you define these influences?

Once a music freak hits 30, it’s hard to talk about specific influences; it’s wide open. One night I can be mesmerised listening to The Disintegration Loop by William Basinski, then the next morning I put on Weezer’s debut album and get off listening to that. I’ve always enjoyed listening to melodic music, however much I like more different, extreme things at other times. You could say that Cuello’s most direct influences are guitar-driven bands with a positive spirit, with the emphasis on vocal melodies. I’m a big fan of Guided by Voices, for example. Not all their songs are great tracks, but most of them are really exciting. I just love Robert Pollard!!  And talking of melodies, there’s also the Pixies, the Beach Boys, Superchunk, Built to Spill, the Ramones, blah blah blah…

Listen to Cuello’s first disc, “Mi Brazo Que te Sobre”.

 

So melody and energy are the distinguishing features of Cuello?

Absolutely. They are two of the important things when writing a Cuello song, where the guitar riffs are important, but they’re nothing without a good vocal melody. And while I’m interested in that spontaneous, laidback sound, I try not to settle for the first thing that comes to mind just because it goes with a certain riff.

In the last ten years, Valencia has produced some of the boldest and most interesting projects in Spanish rock—Le Jonathan Reilly, Estrategia Lo Capto, Negro, Betunizer. Can we talk about a Valencia scene?

It’s true that a lot has happened in recent years. I suppose it’s because people now have more access to much more music, and here, in this country, there’s basically a lot of creativity and a lot of nerve, so you’re going to see people taking risks and wanting to try things. Everyone’s got influences, I’m not denying that, but you can see that lots of bands fromValenciahave got a personality of their own, and that’s great. I’m convinced that the music world will be talking about it. We’ve no reason to envy a lot of the music being made elsewhere.

The song titles, the words and the phrasing you use when you sing are surprising. There’s something different and exciting, a subtle intelligence in these lyrics. All the songs on the disc seem like potential hits…

That’s the idea—to make all the songs hits! But hits for the kind of music lover who never buy anyone’s Greatest Hits.

Tell us about one of your songs. What are the ideas behind a given song?

Really, I prefer not to say too much about what each song is about. I prefer it if everyone draws their own conclusions. Personally, I like things that are thought-provoking, that prompt different interpretations of the same line, flirt with the absurd and with simple things, which are the most important. What I will say about Cuello is that I generally write about very basic things, about lust for life or jumping into a swimming pool, or about internal conflicts and criticising things that seem to me a waste of time and that sometimes make us less happy when what we have to do is just that, try to be happy. But really, explanations are unnecessary. What’s important is that people listen to our music and make of it what they will. Ultimately, they can’t go too far wrong.

YouTube Preview Image

 @JaimeCasasB

 Cuello are playing on the Foyer stage at year six of E!

Band camp