Catalan Music
Hello and welcome to Catalan Music’s monthly podcast which, with a particularly international focus, will be keeping you up to date with important news and events on the Catalan music scene. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICIC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Industries) for the music industry, and particularly Pop, Folk, Jazz and Electronic Music.
This month we’ve opened the programme with the rock fusion of Che Sudaka (),a band that shows one of the faces of the multicultural agitation present in the Catalan capital. Che Sudaka is a group made up of Argentinean and Colombian musicians who have settled in Barcelona. They offer a mixture of rhythms and influences of Latin roots with a distinct Punk attitude.
The name Che Sudaka is a combination of the Argentinean term ‘che’ and the pejorative term with which south-Americans are sometimes referred to in Catalonia, ‘Sudaka’. The band scoff at such commonplaces and indeed take advantage of them in their lively musical performances. Their songs are in Spanish and show distinct Reggae, Ska and Hip Hop influences. Che Sudaka have collaborated with international artists such as Manu Chao and Gogol Bordello. Their latest disc ‘Tudo é possible’, meaning Everything is possible, is the band’s fourth album and includes a DVD of a documentary they made while on their latest South American tour.
Another band comprising group members of different origins, also based in Barcelona is Giulia y Los Tellarini (),under the leadership of Venetian Giulia Tellarini. The other band-members are from Catalonia, the Canary Isles and Argentina. The group soared to fame a couple of years ago when Woody Allen chose one of their songs as a leitmotiv for his film ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ and now they’re back in the limelight with another of their songs “Mais si l’amour” featured in Allen’s latest movie “You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger”’. Giulia y Los Tellarini’s musical style is predominantly Mediterranean with a distinctive port-city flavour and both jazz and cabaret influences. ‘Mais si l’amour’ is a romantic composition which in Woody Allen’s latest film can be heard in its instrumental version.
Rock music with punk, hardcore and committed socio-political messages is an active and attractive formula on both the Catalan and Spanish national music scenes. The Panda Management( agency, based in Girona, in the north of Catalonia, offers a roster of artists that includes some of the most outstanding groups on the circuit, such as the Catalan bands Eina and Deskarats, and the Basque bands Soziedad Alkohólika and Berri Txarrak. Panda Management have recently opened an office in Macau, China (the first to be opened in China by a Catalan agency) from which they will be programming tours by their artists in China, Japan and South East Asia, and will be offering logistic support to other bands and cultural initiatives to facilitate access to such markets. Panda Management have established contacts with Casa Àsia in Barcelona, and Catalan and Basque cultural centres worldwide.
One of the aims of this monthly Catalan Music podcast is to provide information about international tours involving Catalan artists. On the Rock front, one of the most internationally acclaimed bands is Tokyo S. Destruction ().The group, who are from Vilanova i La Geltrú, a coastal town to the South of Barcelona, combine contagious garage sounds with punk, soul and psychedelic influences. All the band members have adopted the artisic surname “Sinclair” in honour of John Sinclair, activist and manager of the legendary group Detroit MC5. Tokyo S. Destruction, who compose their songs in English, will be presenting their new album ‘In The Neighbourhood’, at three different venues in France: Le Havre on September 23rd, Saint Lo on September 24th and Alençon on the 25th.
More Electronic-Pop oriented, the Basque Barcelona-based band Delorean (),are touring Australia and Japan with performances in Brisbane on September 25th, Perth on the 26th, Melbourne on October 2nd, on the 3rd in Sydney, the 4th in Adelaide and the 6th in Tokyo. Also, two up-and-coming electronic musicians, Árbol () and Fibla (),will be performing in Tunis, Tunisia, on September 24th.
The Catalan jazz scene, another hotspot of home-grown musical production, will be present at various international venues in the next few weeks. Two outstanding saxophonists, Llibert Fortuny () and Perico Sambeat (),will be joining forces on September 24th in Bordeaux. Perico Sambeat,an exponent of jazz and flamenco fusion, is preparing for his performance in Africa, at the Harare Jazz Festival in Zimbabwe on October 14th. Emilio Solla (), a Barcelona-based Argentinean pianist who fuses jazz with tango and milonga, will be travelling to New York where he’ll be performing on the 2nd, 3rd, 15th and 22nd of November. Another pianist, the young and much acclaimed Albert Bové () will be performing as guest artist to the Javier Vercher Group on September 23rd in the capital of Morroco, Rabat.
Still on the Jazz front, Catalonia’s most prestigious festival (The Barcelona International Jazz Festival) is about to open its 42nd Edition and will be offering a wide range of concerts during the Autumn months at different emblematic venues such as the Palau de la Música and the Auditori de Barcelona. The bill will include jazz greats such as octogenarian saxophonist Sonny Rollins, on November 3rd and pianist and crooner Jamie Cullum, on November 26th.
Singer-songwriters belong to a deeply-rooted tradition in Catalonia since the advent in the 1960s of creators such as Joan Manuel Serrat, Lluís Llach and Raimon, who were symbols of the opposition to the Franco régime. Currently the genre is undergoing an intense process of revival with emerging artists working with new musical languages, with a tendency to steer clear of politics. One of the up-and-coming singer-songwriters is Valencian vocalist and guitarist Òscar Briz().Briz lived and worked for a number of years in Australia, where he formed part of a successful Indie-Rock band, The Whitlams. Once back in Spain, Briz launched his new musical career on the basis of intimate, poetic songs. He’s just released the album ‘L’estiu’ (The Summer) featuring vocals and acoustic guitar, reminiscent of the late great Nick Drake, but with a more Mediterranean flavour.
Catalan Pop is also rapidly transforming with an increasing number of bands creating in the Catalan language. One of the most outstanding groups of this brand-new generation is Mine!, from Barcelona, who have recently released their second album, ‘Un brindis pel nen androide’ (A Toast to the Android Boy), a product that has inherited the spontaneity and colours of British Pop groups from previous eras such as The Beatles and The Zombies, on which they’ve managed to imprint their own personal stamp with ingenious songs, featuring refreshing vocal harmonies and sophisticated, ornate arrangements. Their new album was produced by one of the most acclaimed producers on the current Catalan Pop scene Ricky Falkner, who has worked with bands such as Love of Lesbian, Sidonie and Standstill.
Mine!( have also participated along with other bands in the ambitious project ‘Submarine Pop. A Catalan Tribute to The Beatles”, an album devoted to the famous Liverpudlians which was devised and marketed by the Catalan music magazine ‘Enderrock’ ().The CD was distributed with the July edition of the magazine and can be purchased on Enderrock’s website. The disc features 18 “new” bands who have adapted different Beatles songs to their own particular musical styles, either in English or Catalan. Other leading bands from the current pop scene featured on the CD are Mazoni, Els Amics de les Arts, La Brigada and Estúpida Erikah. If you’re a Beatles fan, it’s worth pointing out that the album reflects a special sensitivity for the songs composed by George Harrison. Of the 18 tracks on the album, ten are by Harrison and 8 by Lennon and McCartney.
Flamenco music, which had its origins in in the Southern Spanish region of Andalusia, also has its exponents in Catalonia with products that tend to flee from the more orthodox sounds of the genre to offer a fusion of different musical forms and cultures. One of the groups to have renewed this traditional form of expression is a band called Las Migas (),who transgress the genre with influences of chanson d’auteur, cabaret and gipsy music from Central and Eastern Europe. The band, made up of four female musicians from Catalonia, Andalusia, Bretagne and Germany, have performed at various European venues and have succeeded in attracting a numerous following, although their debut album ‘Reinas del matute’ (Contraband Queens) wasn’t released until Spring 2010, five years after the band’s creation. Las Migas have one of the most appealing voices of the current Catalan scene, Sílvia Pérez Cruz, who also performs in other musical projects and as a soloist.
Las Migas will be performing on October 28th at the Womex Music Fair (),the most important in Europe which will be held for the second year running in Copenhagen. The Womex World Music Expo will take place from October 27th to October 31st, and Catalan Music will be there with it own stand which will be representing some fifteen agencies and institutions, such as Barcelona’s L’Auditori, Vilanova i La Geltrú’s Popular and Traditional Music Festival, the Catalan Association of Managers and Concert Promoters and the Taller de Músics’ Music School and Management Agency, and agencies such as WAM, Batall Produccions, Central Art Process, Desfolca’t, Mas i Mas, Rosazul, Tenzing Media, Tercera Via and Vània Produccions. Two other concert promoters will have their own stands at the fair: the Proud Events agency and the Fira Mediterrània (Mediterranean Fair), an important showcase of folk and world music, which is held annually in November in the city of Manresa. In Copenhagen, the Catalan delegation will be busy projecting the vitality of the Catalan music industry.
And now, as this month’s Catalan Music podcast draws to its close, let’s talk about a band who are enjoying a much-deserved moment of popularity and recognition: Love of Lesbian( is a five-piece band from Barcelona and one of the most sought-after groups on the current Catalan and Spanish music scenes. They’ve been together for over ten years and have released six albums. Although initially, the band composed their songs in English, five years ago they decided to switch to Spanish, which was instrumental in attracting a wider audience in Spain, while, at the same time, their music matured and showed a much more defined character. Love of Lesbian offer a sharp Indie-Pop sound with melodramatic twists and surreal lyrics. Their breakthrough album is entitled ‘1999 (or how to generate snowstorms with a magnifying-glass focused on the moon)’. In summer they also released a new piece entitles ‘Incondicional’ (Unconditional), recorded for the European Athletics Championship held in Barcelona. After a long stint on independent labels, Love of Lesbian are currently represented by a multinational record company and play to full houses at mid-size venues all over Spain.
So with Love of Lesbian, one of the most successful bands from the Catalan Pop Music scene, Catalan Music wishes you all the best and we trust that Autumn will regale you with lots of good music. Moltes gràcies i fins aviat!