Barcelona Record Label Showcase

Especially for Barcelona where the music and art scenes can be elusive, it always helps to check out record labels in order to discover new bands and to find interesting places and venues to go to. Barcelona has numerous independent record labels that also manage international artists, as well as some collective labels managed by musicians, or just smaller-run operations. Spain doesn’t really have a massive national indie label, because there isn’t much of an audience for it in the country, but what you will find are groups of cool, like-minded people who are trying to make something happen. THE BOMBER JACKET has been lucky enough to meet and talk to many of these folks this year.

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Bcore Disc

Bcore has been around since 1990 and they claim the title of one of the most influential labels in Spain. They have a variety of different types of bands such as the sludgy ’90s rock of Betunitzer, the melodic folk of Maria Rodés, the yelping and astral guitar of Margarita, the piano storytelling of Fanny Roz, or the astrological acoustic and tape project of Aries. The label grew out of hardcore punk at the end of the ‘80s, passing around handmade records, t-shirts and posters, and the D.I.Y. mentality is still with them. It’s also one of the few in Spain that still have a physical location. In Gràcia, carrer Montamy 25 houses the record shop, full of new and old records and CDs for purchase. The collection is also available online.

bcoredisc.com

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Sones, the Strange Ones

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Good local music can be hard to come across in Barcelona unless you know where to look. The city is a little bit fragmented as there’s a bigger draw to drunken discotheques, heavy metal bars or jazz and flamenco. “Indie rock” bands can be hard to find, because there aren’t too many of them and there are even fewer places to go see them play. There are only a handful of places where bands can get gigs or afford to get gigs, as most venues are reserved for acts passing through on an international tour. Luckily, there are a few independent labels that are helping to cultivate a music community, like Sones.

The record label and management company released records from a bunch of bands THE BOMBER JACKET has covered in previous issues, including Mujeres, Manos de Topo and Za!. As for international artists, they even released Dirty Beaches’ Badlands, an excellent dank and dusty, lo-fi, cinematic album from last year. They’ve also helped book and promote acts likeWavves, Bill Callahan, Dan Deacon and more. Sones even has a partnership with Minimúsica, which is an organization backed by the government that is dedicated to making the live music experience available for kids. A lot of Sones artists play these kinds of shows, tailoring their sets to a younger audience.

Listen to a Sones sampler below:

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Reading Horoscopes with Aries

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The sheer giddy pop force of Aries is undeniable, regardless of whether or not you can understand Spanish. For a band that’s as mystical as their astrological name might imply, the music is less of a psychedelic trance and more of a meditative celebration captivated by main songwriter Isabel Fernández’s fresh and colorful melodies and harmonies. The overall sound is so immediately contemporary, with subtle samples and just the right amount of echo creating a bright ambient aura, that you hardly notice the classical Spanish guitar and castanets backing it all up. It’s pretty impressive how Fernández is able to reinvent a traditional style and make it her own. What’s also impressive is how, along with her sister Virginia, just two people are able to make so many sounds, to incorporate so many instruments and effects.

Fernández’ last act was called Charades and she played with a full band. The music had a few more decorations and experiments, but Aries shows her progress as a songwriter, as she more tightly conducts pop and synthesizing styles. The Charades records, particularly Revolución Solar, are fun to explore if you like Aries.

THE BOMBER JACKET spoke with Aries about astrology, Spain and the band’s latest record, La Magia Bruta.

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Mujeres, Mujeres, Mujeres: Putting Their Fists Down

Photo by Ivan Montero

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Luchador Records is down the street from the MACBA, Barcelona’s contemporary art museum where you constantly have to dodge skaters who are making videos, doing tricks off of the entrance’s ramps, staircases and the ample open space of the white stone plaza. More often than not, they’re also smoking weed and drinking a few San Miguels. At the beginning of the record shop’s sparse street that only houses one other record store, a clothing outlet and a fruit stand, I stopped for just a minute to read a Spanish poem scrawled on the wall called, “Ways to Kill.”

I was going to interview Mujeres at the store the bassist co-owns and that is their secret lair of sorts. Upon entering the place I saw a bunch of records on the walls that I surprisingly recognized, which was a nice change for being in Spain, and it immediately reminded me of DIY music spaces I had come across in the US. There were zines, random art projects like boxes of rolling papers with poems written on each paper, cassette tapes of local bands, patches for the “Pizza Army” and even one floppy disk of what undoubtedly couldn’t have been more than one song. What was more, as the band led me to the back space, past the huge Japanese arcade game, where we would do the interview, they told me that they had shows there every once in a while.

Besides being a great bopping rock and roll band with wavey surf riffs and fuzzified garage intensity, they have the potential to be an influential force for the future of Barcelona’s DIY and “indie” music. They explained that there weren’t many bands like them in the city and it’s true that on any given night there aren’t a ton of places to go see music or even music to go see. If more groups pop up with a mentality like Mujeres, places like Luchador would be perfect nesting grounds for music collectives. Either way, the spot is a cool one to visit and Mujeres is a band not to miss live.

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